We left the White Desert in the morning, we changed from 4WD to the bus shortly afterwards. We went on to Farafra to visit the Bader museum, which hosts an exhibition of the art of the local artist Bader, who depicts his oasis and the life in it in his various pieces of art.
The next stop has been the mud-brick town of El Qaser where we had a guide to show us around. Finally we arrived at our destination, the main village of the oasis of Dahkla.
Author Archives: Björn
Bahariya & the White Desert
We finally left Cairo to head out into the desert.
After about 5 hours of driving through a more and more sandy environment we arrived in the first oasis on route – Bahariya. Here we had enough time for an optional jeep tour around the oasis, as well as a Bedouin dinner.
The next day we had a late start; after breakfast we set off in two jeeps to enter the desert. including an overnight camp out there.
Cairo, the Pyramids and the Sphinx
After the pyramids in the jungle of the Yucatan peninsula, I now wanted to see the real pyramids, so this trip did bring me to Egypt for a two week trip around the country.
The first few days were dedicated for Cairo, the pyramids and the sphynx at Giza.
La Venta
The trip did slowly come to an end, today did bring us from Palenque to Lake Catemaco with a stop in Villahermosa to visit the “La Venta Park” – an open air museum focused on Olmec art and zoo (mostly local animals, including crocodils, jaguars and snakes). The next day we made our way back to Mexico City.
Palenque
We made it back to Palenque – this time staying longer and actually checking out the attractions – starting with the huge ruin site in the jungle.
Ernesto – our local guide (the best of all of them) – showed us around and gave us deep and lively insight in the life of the past occupants of this city. In a game he explained us how/ why (probably) the city has been abandoned. After out visit to the Palenque ruin site, we were led into the jungle – to see some more ruins hidden in the jungle and not excavated (yet). He also showed us the beauty of the jungle. In the afternoon we also visited the Misol-Ha waterfall.
Uxmal & a secret Cenote
Today saw us heading for a daytrip to the ruin site of Uxmal. Once more we had a guide showing us around and explaining the different buildings. After having visited this ancient site, we were led to a secret cenote somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where we had a nice and refreshing swim.
Chitzen Itza & Merida
About halfway from Isla Mujeres to Merida we stopped at Chitzen Itza, the best known – and easiest reachable – Mayan ruin site.
A guide led us through the grounds showing and explaining the most important bits.
From here we continued our journey to Merida, where we arrived in the late afternoon and plenty of time to explore town.
Isla Mujeres
We had swapped our stay in Cancun by a two day trip to Isla Mujeres starting with a one-hour ferry trip to the island, some free time to explore the town/ island. On the second day we had an early start for boat trip, including an opportunity for reef snorkeling to see the beautiful underwater-world of a Caribbean reef and a visit to Isla Contoy. Isla Contoay is a bird sanctuary about 20km north of Isla Mujeres, where we had fish BBQ for lunch (delicious) before heading back.
Rivera Maya
We finally had made it to the Rivera Maya – to XPU-HA – for four days in beach paradise – camping and/or hammocking directly at a dream beach.
Loads of things to do and experience, starting from just enjoying the beach (swimming, sun-bathing) up to optional activities like underground cenote snorkling, swimming with dolphins, parasailing and a jungle ATV tour with cenote swimming.
Tulum
We continued to Tulum – a jump into mass-tourism – with plenty of tourists, western price level and facilities as in a western country (toilets, shops, restaurants, snack bars). Anyway – this ruin site needed to be on the plan, nicely located at a beach you normally would just dream of…
