Now how is it? It is one small step for man - one giant leep for mankind.
We are
leaving the Black
Desert and go to a nearby
oasis town to do some shopping for lunch and dinner. When we get to the town
the search for the public toilet start. Apparently there should be one
somewhere - but nobody seems to know where. We walk down the street there is
nothing that looks like it could be a public toilet - then a women walking down
the street towards her house lets a group of strangers in to use the family
bathroom - we get in - and when she is inside the headscarf come of immediately
now inside the privacy of her family home the religious rules dont demand a
headscarf anymore even though we are several males in no way related to her.
We get in
and starts to talk - the conversation suffers a bit by the fact that the rest
of her family dont speak any English and she is not fluent.
But at least her English
is a lot better than our Arabic so we make do. The conversation drags along and
we actually should get back to do the shopping and go further down the road -
but she offers us tea and you just can not refuse an offer of tea in a Bedouin
home.
We get the
nice hot tea and drink it afterwards is time to go shopping. There is a rumour
floating around - they got beers in this town. There it is the only bottle shop/bar
in town we get beers and ice to cool them down. But we also need water. We find
a shop selling water there is lots of them. He ask 1½ Egyptians pounds per
bottle - which is actually a good price considering we are in the middle of an
oasis town. But we are ready to barging - we want a discount if we buy 12
bottles of water from his shop - this takes a while and we managed to confuse
the man - he starts to offer us 12 bottles for 20 pounds which is
actually more than 1½ pound per bottle.
The debate continues and finally he
caves in - he will sell the 12 bottles to us for 16 pounds - a discount of
no less than 2 pounds
split three ways - all in all a discount of almost 15 US cents each - we are so
proud of our great success.
After this
we drive of to a place in another oasis where we prepare lunch and stay for the
next few hours relaxing in the shade nobody really wants to get back out on the
road driving along in the midday sun where the temperature is surging way above
40 in
the shade.
Late in the
afternoon we drive on. We get to the White
Desert a remarkable area made out of calcium rock formations and form by the
blowing wind and sand from the rest of the Sahara.
It is probably the landscape on earth most resembling the surface of the moon -
it definitely feels otherworldly to be there. We spend the evening there having
dinner and exploring the surroundings - at night it is time to enjoy the nice
cold beers we got at the first oasis town - they taste so good after a hot day
in the desert.
