Things to do
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White Desert National Park
Stay the night rather than turning back at sunset. You sleep among chalk towers the wind has shaped into mushrooms and animals. At sunrise the low sun turns them orange and pink.
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Viewpoint
Agabat
Where the Bahariya road drops off the plateau, limestone cliffs and sand dunes fold into a valley that marks the start of the White Desert depression. Drivers often let the 4x4s run down the soft dunes on the way in. Late afternoon is the hour for it, when the low sun picks out the layers in the cliffs and the shadows stretch across the sand.
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Museum
Badr Museum
The self-taught artist Badr Abdel Moghny built this mud-brick house to show his own paintings and sculptures of oasis life, many made from local sand, clay and palm. A sculpture garden fills the courtyard. Opening hours are loose and the artist or his family often show visitors round, so ask at a guesthouse before walking over in the heat of the day.
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Other
Bir Sitta
A sulphurous hot spring a few kilometres west of the village pours into a concrete tank among palm and olive gardens. Its name means Well Six. Tour groups often stop here after a night in the desert to wash off the sand, and evenings bring local families. Swimwear that covers the shoulders and knees suits the setting, since the gardens are working farmland.
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Other
Black Desert
Dark volcanic rubble caps a field of conical hills here, and the black scree spills down over orange sand, which gives the stretch north of the White Desert its name. Most tours stop to climb Gebel al-Ingliz, a short scramble to a lookout the British used during the First World War. The views over the plain reward the effort, and the descent is loose underfoot.
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Other
Crystal Mountain
A low ridge beside the Bahariya road glitters where its rock is shot through with crystal, and a natural arch stands a short walk away. Every White Desert tour stops here on the drive south, usually for half an hour at most. The surface has been picked over by decades of visitors, so the best crystal now sits in the rock, not on the ground around it.
