Egypt
Bahariya Oasis
Hot springs steaming in palm groves where golden mummies were unearthed beneath a donkey path.
Steam rises from iron-rich hot springs beneath date palms, the water rust-orange against green fronds and tawny desert. The air is warm, still, faintly mineral. Somewhere in the groves a donkey brays — the same sound that greeted the Roman garrison two millennia ago.
Bahariya is the gateway to the Western Desert, a depression ringed by black basalt hills 370 kilometres from Cairo. In 1996 a donkey stumbled through a tomb roof and opened the Valley of the Golden Mummies — a Graeco-Roman necropolis of thousands of gilded mummies, among the great archaeological finds of the twentieth century. The oasis has been inhabited since at least the Middle Kingdom, was famous in the ancient world for its date wine, and its springs, date groves and olive orchards still hold the community together.
Couple
Soak at dusk in a rust-orange spring, tea on a tray, and let the desert cool around you.
- The Valley of the Golden Mummies is estimated to hold ten thousand Graeco-Roman dead in gilded cartonnage.
- Natural springs run 30 to 37 degrees year-round, free to soak in at points all around the oasis.
- Every Western Desert route crosses here — Bahariya is the base camp for the deep desert.
- The Black Mountain above town gives a full-circle view from oasis palms to the White Desert's edge.
Dates and olives are the staples — buy them at the Bawiti morning market, still dusty from the grove.
Soak in a spring under the palms while tea arrives on a tray.
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