Dec 6 - It is cold at night. We sleep in a tent with sleeping bags supplied by our guides, and on top of this we put heavy camel hair blankets. I get up around 6:00 to take a walk and catch the sunrise.
Its fossil time! There are many here, mostly encased in the chalk formation.
Everything packed up and we are off, further east into the desert. Soon we leave the rugged hilly area we are in and into more flat, sandy terrain.
On to an area of large sand dunes.
For lunch, stop at an area with some acacia trees and other plants. The water table here is just a few meters down, so can be accessed by some desert plants. There are many ditches plowed deep into the sand, work done years ago by farmers to try and grow watermelons here. The yield was good but the government shut the operation down because of the damage it would likely cause to the national park.
Also along the old caravan route is a small oasis. In English it is called Magic Spring, and in Arabic, ‘Ayn Al-Surw (عين السرو). This, and others like it, formed a chain by which trade was conducted between the Nile Valley and Libya. The few ruins and graves remaining around it date from Roman times. I poke around and find a few human bones.
From here we are back in the really dry desert, with no plant life. Stop in very flat area with a multitude of iron-replacement fossils. The guides call them volcanic rocks (as in ejecta from nearby eruptions), but they are clearly sea animals and other forms such as agglomerations of crystals (mostly calcite, now iron oxides), and trace fossils such as burrows.
Move on to what is called the ‘New White Desert’, meaning an area with abundant chalk outcrop that is pure white in color. This is where we will camp tonight.
There was no end to great sunset pictures. Oranges and yellows due to dust and sand, but without the layer of pollution.
