A bit of sand [night, day two].

The Mushroom and the Duck, or something like that.

Setting up camp. No roof - we slept under the [kajillions of] stars.

Fire in front of the Chicken.

Dinner.

Couldn't get a good picture of the desert foxes. They would approach the garbage bag veeeeeery cautiously and flee at the first sign of movement from any of us. After dinner, the guides held out bones for them, and they would hover for a bit, then grab the bone as quickly as possible and scamper away. Yasmin says that a few of them were sniffling around her head while she was trying to sleep.

Music, dancing, and shisha around the fire.

And lo, an angel came upon the weary travelers in the desert and said unto them, "Forsake your camera settings and change your ways, for there is much overexposure."

The things that look like twigs sticking out of the rock are actually also rock.

Oasis!

We stopped to cool ourselves off.

Camel guy from yesterday also stopped by.

Another group stopped by - just two American girls - and our guides threatened to throw theirs in for a dip.

The last meal - lunch and shisha.

They've added pictures to the warning labels on cigarettes. Not that that stops anyone - at times I felt like the only person in the entire country who didn't smoke.

HoHos and Twinkies in the desert. The little restaurant/gift shop had some postcards that looked like they had been sitting around there since the desert itself was created. I asked how much one was, and the old Bedouin said I could just have it. He also gave me and Yasmin each a necklace. He was darling.

A rural Egyptian town.