Leaving the River behind

New years day began for us with a sad farewell to the scenes of the River Nile. We were picked up by our driver Moshen, who headed inland towards the western desert. We encountered a different experience of having the road to our selves. There was next to no traffic. The only thing invading the road was sand. In fact, at times it completely covered the road. The sand can move several metres a year. So it should be cleared regularly off the road, however there was no evidence of this occurring. The few vehicles we did see included a truck with large pottery jars containing sugar cane juice. These were on their way to be stored for a year to become molasses. The landscape changed and at times the desert appeared to be sprinkled with icing sugar, and other times sprinkled with ash. The road signs, railings and even the railway line were missing in many places because they had been stolen for scrap metal value. consequently there were unused railway stations, incomplete bus stations and no train service to the west! In the new Nile Valley we passed by Bagdad, Algiers, Palestine, Kuwait and Sinai (small towns developed by President Nasser). Talk about going through the middle east! We discovered where the lemon flavor in your cough medicine comes from. Yes it is from the desert where millions of lemons are brought and left out in the sun for a week to dry out on the sand. They are then collected and reduced to power that can flavor whatever you want.