Off to the desert

Our last few days in Cairo have been spent sorting out the bikes and researching our water requirements for a 3 day ride through the desert. Our plan at the moment is to pop a 1.5 litre bottle in every pannier and the water bag on the back. Although the road between Bahariya and Farafra oases has no roadhouses there are plenty of passing jeep safaris who will help us out if we get short. Hopefully, it won't come to that though!

Our ride between oases takes us through the Black Desert, the White Desert and past the Crystal Mountain. I'm guessing the Emerald City will be on our route although it's not mentioned in The Lonely Planet. We are going to attempt 60kms a day and sleep behind a handy sand dune when we get tired. Watch this space in a week or so when we reach civilisation again!

Today we finally managed to visit the Egyptian Museum which is 5 minutes walk from the hostel. There's no getting away from the fact that the antiquities are amazing but the place could do with a bit better organisation. It seems almost wilfully disordered which means you need a guide to make sense of it. As is the Egyptian way much of the time the terms and conditions change somewhere between beginning and end and both parties leave feeling cheated. I must stress however that this isn't ALWAYS the case.