In our continuing attempt to bring you exciting travelogue-style content, we recently went to the Western Desert, which is actually the eastern part of the Libyan Desert, which is in turn sometimes lumped in as the eastern Sahara. If you are sufficiently confused, we will continue.

99% of Egypt's population lives in the narrow confines of the Nile River Valley. Most of the rest of the country is simply too dry to be habitable. But in the Western Desert, there are five oases where springs yield water from an underground river stemming from subsaharan Africa or a fossil water source, depending on who you believe. We went to two of these, Farafra and Bahariyya.

Until a paved road was built in the 1980s, it was very difficult to get to this part of Egypt. Now, thanks to the road, some archaeological discoveries, and the movie The English Patient, tourists are visiting the Western Desert and its oases in increasing numbers. Flies live well out into the White Desert on trash left by the tourists, and the children in Bahariyya have a definite idea of how one deals with foreigners ("Give me a pen! Give me candy! Are you a Muslim? Why not?"). Immigrants from other parts of Egypt are being encouraged to settle and farm these areas, making for some tension between them and the locals. It is hard not to worry that this area will soon be just as overrun and irritating as the rest of the country.

The oases rise out of the desert like, well, like oases, and sometimes the line between desert and greenery is shockingly crisp.

In Farafra we hired a 4x4 and a driver to take us out to the White Desert for the night. I promptly dubbed the 4x4 the Big-Ass Safari Vehicle 2: Electric Boogaloo, or BASV2 for short. I do love these Big-Ass Safari Vehicles, and it is a pleasure to watch them operated off-road by skilled drivers. I did not try to explain to Hamdy, our driver, that in our country such vehicles are driven only between school and soccer practice.

The White Desert is remarkable for its white rock formations called inselbergs, carved into unlikely shapes by wind and sand. Some of the inselbergs have already collapsed, others look like they might go at any moment. NASA scientists have come out to the White Desert to study the inselbergs, seeking insight into similar formations on Mars. In the White Desert it is not hard to see the similarities between the two planets' terrains, except in the White Desert you can crouch most anywhere and pick up fossilized sea shells -- unbelievably, the whole area was once ocean.

Some of the formations bear the names of inconsiderate tourists who have carved their names into the stone. We came to attribute all the litter in the desert to Walter and Heidi, two tourists whose names were displayed this way.

We slept in the open in the desert, Julie constantly on the lookout for scorpions, snakes, or other creepy crawlies; me on the lookout for Walter and Heidi.

The following day saw us to Bahariyya, the oasis with the largest population. Bahariyya has gained notoriety in recent years because of the discovery of a stash of Greco-Roman era mummies (the "Valley of the Golden Mummies"). As it happened, as we waited for our hotel room to be readied we sat down next to Zahi Hawass, the famously egotistical Director of Antiquities in Egypt. Julie leaned over to ask him, "excuse me, are you..." and was unable to finish before he proudly declared, "yes, I am!"

The Valley of the Golden Mummies is not open to tourists, but we had heard stories of people gaining permission to see the site anyway. At Julie's polite inquiry, Dr. Zahi said there was no problem, and he directed the local Director of Antiquities next to him to meet us the following day. He ditched us, though, probably sick of having his boss make such promises on his behalf, and we couldn't really blame him.

So we left without seeing the Valley. But on our way home, we did meet a pack of baladi dogs.