Black and White

 
There are so many types of beauty in this world.  In Canada we love to paddle to beautiful forested areas overlooking lakes.  We have visited some countries with beautiful architecture, like France, and beautiful mountain ranges, like Peru.  We recently spent the weekend in the Black and White desert, probably the most unique landscape we've ever visited.  Although there is almost no vegetation there, it is one of the most beautiful place we've ever been.

The black and white desert is exactly what it sounds like, a desert that is black in white.  Actually it is two separate deserts, one black (from magma coming up through cracks in the earth's surface).  One white, from the limestone.  The photo above is at the beginning of the white desert.

We went on this trip with ten other teachers, to make our group of twelve.  The first day was mostly spent driving through the black desert to the white desert, with fabulous sunset stop atop a sand dune.  After a big meal, some games outside in the desert, and a night of camping under the stars, everyone was shockingly chipper in the morning.  We all got our Bedouin guides to tie scarves traditionally on our heads.  It's good to keep you cooler as I later discovered.  If you can't tell, I'm center left, and Tom is on the far right.  (If you haven't figured it out yet, you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.)

Our second day was fun, we stopped at a sand dune, a natural rock bridge, and a cold spring.  The meals were good, the company was better, and I even won a game of Settlers of Catan (nerdy but true!)  Tom and I tried to climb a big mountain, but it turns out that climbing limestone is very difficult.  Everytime I would try to grab onto something, it would break off.  The evidence is all over my gray pants!  We did manage to climb up this white desert "mushroom" for a photo before we were told that it is forbidden to climb them.  Oops!

Our second night was awesome.  After playing games we sat around the campfire, sang some arabic songs (who knows what we were saying?!) while our guide played a drum, and had roasted marshmallows and traditional mint tea.  We were still asleep by 11pm.  It's amazing how cold it can feel at night when you were sweating under the sun all day.  I guess that's part of being in the desert.  We brought our warm sleeping bags from home, so we managed to stay very warm through the night. 

Our last morning was quite cold, but Tom made all the ladies happy by preparing hot chocolate.  After breakfast we just headed back to the entrance, and soon back to Cairo craziness.  The white desert was probably the "whitest Christmas" we'll be getting this year as we fly to Uganda tomorrow for the holidays.