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You are here: Home / Archives for desert

Photo: Desert Oasis

January 13, 2012 By Jillian

The desert is a strange and yet beautiful place. Wide expanses of sand, the hot sun, and if you are lucky a cool breeze – better yet an oasis to rest your feet.

Although it is well recognized as a difficult place to get around in, I love hiking, camping and enjoying the solitude. Then again, not all desert landscapes are barren.  Oasis’  like the one below have been supporting nomadic communities for centuries.

We spent time in the Sahara desert traveling as modern day nomads. I cannot tell you how happy we were to find even just basic modern conveniences on the other end. It made us truly appreciate. The magnificent. Cities in countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have managed to make the desert bloom.

Many of the world’s deserts are found on the equator so it should come as no surprise to see deserts in countries as far apart as the UAE and Peru.

Desert Oasis

If you go: Dubai is a great place to explore the desert and still have access to modern luxuries. The hotels themselves, like Madinat Jumeirah Dubai are like a  modern oasis – a bit of luxury in an otherwise expansive desert.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: desert, dubai, oasis

Photo: Temples of Naqa

June 15, 2011 By Jillian

Close your eyes for a moment.  You’re driving along a newly paved tarmac road, eyes peeled for a “road” into the desert.  There is literally nothing in sight save for some overhead powerlines.  Your map indicates you make a right past the powerlines, but alas it isn’t to scale so you’re not really sure.  You see some tire tracks into the desert and after discussion decide to follow.  After a few hundred meters its clear you’re following some sort of path and you continue per your directions for nearly 20 kilometers.  Besides a few desert shrubs there’s nothing.  Eventually, just as you think you’re about to be lost in the desert, for the only road- the one you just turned off of- doesn’t show on your GPS, you see a sign.  Naqa to the right, Musawarat to the left.  You go right and after 10 more kilometers you see a concrete building like a mirage in the sand.  As you pull up your car stalls, the guard comes out to greet you.  You make small talk, pay your fee and decide that perhaps the car problem is that its too hot.  The temperature is well over 100 F.  As you approach the ruins you hear the tinkling of bells.  Goats and a few sheperds crowd around a watering hole, pulling out precious buckets of liquid.

Few walls remain, but those that do are intricately carved with religious figures and stories.  Ancient lion sculptures line a forgotten path to the main temple and despite the beating sun and scortching temperatures you are drawn to just “be” at the site.

This photo is from the ruins at Naqa, Sudan.  In the middle of the desert, Naqa was certainly one of the most atmospheric places we’ve ever traveled to.  Actually all of Sudan was incredible, check out our posts from Sudan.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

etchings at Naqa

 

IF YOU GO: Be sure to read our African visa guide before attempting to get a Sudanese visa, it can be a difficult process but there are some valuable tips we’ve shared to make things run smoother.   Sudan is an incredible country, but due to ongoing political problems we were only able to travel in the North.  You should absolutely check the latest travel warnings before embarking on a trip to Sudan and even better, try to contact people in the country for the best information.  If you’re looking to explore the desert somewhere a bit easier logistically, you might want to look into holidays to Dubai.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: desert, ruins, temples

Photo of the Day: Sousselsvlei

March 8, 2011 By Jillian

A picture just like this one is on the cover of just about every guidebook of Namibia. These trees are just hanging out, waiting and hoping for the water to come back. In the meantime, mixed with the orange sand and blue sky they make for some of our most brilliant images of the entire trip.

Special thanks to Flickr user Itinerantlondoner for marking this photo as a favorite.

To see a few of our favorite photos from Namibia click here.

Our PHOTO PAGE has links to all of our collections on Flickr. Be sure to mark some of your own favorites so that we can include them on this column. We’ll be highlighting a different photo every day.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: desert, landscape, nature

Photo of the Day: Trees of Sossusvlei

March 2, 2011 By Jillian

A picture just like this one is on the cover of just about every guidebook of Namibia. These trees are just hanging out, waiting and hoping for the water to come back. In the meantime, mixed with the orange sand and blue sky they make for some of our most brilliant images of the entire trip. Sossusvlei was just inspiring, even at dawn.

Special thanks to Flickr user ItinerantLondoner for marking this photo as a favorite.

To see a few of our favorite photos from Namibia click here.

Our PHOTO PAGE has links to all of our collections on Flickr. Be sure to mark some of your own favorites so that we can include them on this column. We’ll be highlighting a different photo every day.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: desert, landscape, namibia, nature

Atop Mt. Sinai

June 7, 2010 By Danny

Hiking Mt Sinai is the sort of thing that manypeople come to Egypt to do. Most people fly to one of Egypt’s expensive coastal cities, book a tour, get on the bus around midnight, arrive sometime before 2am, and with some luck are at the summit with one thousand of their closest friends that they never met before who are all just as tired and cranky as you’d expect them to be…..oh, but the sunrise is spectacular. We decided against that route.

We arrived in the small yet touristy town of St. Catherine’s in the afternoon. This is little town is walking distance from the actual mountain but sees a mere fraction of the traffic the mountain does…since no one wants to sleep here. We were welcomed to town by nice cool air (it might be a desert but it is as high as Denver) along with a Bedouin man who took us rather quickly to his hotel where we quickly made ourselves comfortable as the only guests there. We sat out under the stars,enjoyed a nice Bedouin dinner (which looked surprisingly similar to Italian) and prepared to sleep in rather than waking up at 2am to start our hike…we slept until 10 am.

Doing this hike in the afternoon has three clear benefits from my standpoint. One, you’re awake. Two, you can see things and will enjoy yourself rather than injure yourself. Three, hardly anyone else does it this way. Teaming up with another fellow who arrived at our hotel long after we did we set off around midday to start our hike, passing the usual camel in the road, a couple of fruit stands, and an overpriced souvenir shop.

Arriving at the St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of the mountain we obtained the mandatory guide (in lieu of an entry fee) and started up the long windy trail rather than the steep staircase. On the way we passed 16 overpriced snack shacks but only a handful were open…they really exist for that morning crew. We had the mountain to ourselves the entire 3 hours we hiked.

At the top we were the first to arrive and immediately set to work. First I needed to find to large stones in the shape of tablets. Then, I gave myself a “desert nomad” look using my bandanna and found a suitable place for the photo shoot where I cast myself as Moses. Finally, I posed for the camera with my props approximately 250 times. Most of these photos remain private however, and will be used at a later date.

As far as I can tell, the sunset was just as spectacular as the sunrise would have been except that we were awake to see it so it didn’t feel quite as otherworldly as many who climb in the pre-dawn hours might experience. We went down that mountain rather quickly, and aided by the light of the nearly full moon. We ate well that night and slept even better.

IF YOU GO: Trust us, go and spend a couple of nights in St Catherine’s rather than doing this as an uncomfortable bus trip from Dahab. We stayed at Sheik Sina (owned by Sheik Musa’s son/) and had a found it very comfortable with a lot of options regarding lodging. Getting out the options were a bus to Dahab or a bus to Cairo (where we came from) so we took a cap to Nuweiba in order to continue to Jordan. You can walk to the Monastery and the hike from town without a problem.

Filed Under: Africa, Egypt, Headline, Hike, Middle East Tagged With: desert, hiking, mountains

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