Peter bought a real Bedouin dress in the oasis and from now on wind, sun, sand and other annoyances will have no access to him. Afterwards we made a climb to one of the hills in the Black desert (Partner stayed at the base) and some more off-road where we were very close to employing the shovels again.
The day was almost finalized with a night swim in the Spring No. 6, close to Farafra oasis. We stayed an hour or so in a hot sulphur spring (some 45 degrees Centigrade) in complete darkness under the stars. Ah, it was so romantic… But probably each of us was secretly dreaming of some other kind of company.
Around ten o'clock p.m. we drove to a lit tower, standing out in nowhere, where we were invited for a tea cup at a camp fire with five workers that were drilling for water. The hole is 750 metres deep already and after another month of drilling they'll reach the water layer at 1000 metres of depth.
10.1.2004 | Western desert, Egypt
We woke up under the eucalyptus tree with an empty battery! Yesterday we gave 20 litres of diesel fuel to a truck driver that stopped on the road with a damaged and empty fuel-tank so he could reach the Bahariya oasis. So today we enjoyed a local's help who gave us a bit of his unknown model Chevy pick-up. And everything was ready for the start of a new great day. But wait a moment! Peter woke up with a new health problem – he faced an eye infection, caused by yesterday's wind and sand. The local doctor, when he finally appeared in the village hospital after 10 o'clock, gave an expert diagnosis: "Conjuctivitis, yes, yes, a small allergy problem," gave half a bottle of eye-drops to Peter and made some publicity for his private clinic, "just in case…"
