Hiking through Egypt's white desert

West Australian

18 hours ago

'No, really, I can't take them,' I insist, laughing, a little embarrassed. Mahmoud just smiles, already peeling the camel-wool socks off his feet and holding them out like an offering. I shift my gaze from his to Sherif's, a stranger just days ago turned into someone I now call a dear friend. That's what the quiet magic of the White Desert does — knits together hearts that have only just met, weaving their stories into one.
'Is it rude if I say 'no'?' I ask Sherif desperately, knowing Mahmoud can't understand my English. 'I feel awful literally taking the socks off his feet, but I don't want to offend.'
Sherif only nods. I sigh, once again in awe at the generosity and kindness of the Bedouin culture and gratefully accept the beige hand-woven socks, which I'd complimented in passing moments earlier. Mahmoud smiles shyly before walking away, the soft sand sifting between his toes with each hushed step.
It's been four days since me and a group of 14 travellers began our week-long hike through the White Desert. After the sensory overload of Cairo, the contrast of this vast silent expanse was unsettling. But its impossible emptiness quickly became intoxicating. You can breathe deeper and think slower here. Nothing demands your attention except the unearthly landscape stretching endlessly around you — kilometres of chalky, pale ground, textured like the surface of an alien moon crunching softly underfoot.
Somehow, this bunch of strangers from all walks of life has become something like family over this journey.
I think back to our first evening together, how we walked side by side, asking careful questions of one another as the sun began to dip, painting the sky like a slow-moving kaleidoscope.
A few days later and we're arm in arm, laughing like people who've known each other for years. There's something about hiking in the desert — the gentle monotony of each step — that strips things down to their essence. You ask less about what someone does back home and more about who they are at their core. And in turn, you let yourself be more open than you ever thought you would with people whose names you only just learned.
Keeping watch over us as we pass through chalk-white canyons are towering limestone formations, silent sentinels jutting out of the ground like frozen waves — their stark contrast with the deep blue sky like something out of a dream.
We escape the midday sun under one of these ghost-like sculptures, crouched inside a naturally formed cave as we savour the smoky and smooth flavours of homemade baba ghanoush, spread across pillowy flatbread still warm from the Bedouins' fire.
Finding yourself among these ghostly white sculptures, shaped by millennia of wind and sand, is truly humbling. As is the near-constant ache in my calves from hours spent traversing the endless sea of soft pale sand.
'I can give you a massage,' one of our guides, Ibrahim, offers after arriving at our camp for the night. His English is far better than his peers', but his hospitality is just as far-reaching.
I politely decline, my priorities with the steaming hot cup of karkade warming my hands. The fire flickers nearby, painting us in gold and shadow underneath an endless ceiling of stars.
As the sheer silence of the desert wraps around us, and the cold night air begins to bite, my feet thaw slowly, toasting in thick woolly socks.