Black Desert

The Black Desert begins about 30 km south of Bawiti and extends toward the White Desert — a volcanic landscape entirely unlike the sandy desert of popular imagination. Here, low conical hills and flat plateau surfaces are covered with dark basalt debris, creating a terrain that is more lunar than Arabian. The colour shift is dramatic when you drive through it: one moment the road runs through pale sandy landscape, then the hills turn black and the surface darkens around you.

The Black Desert is best visited as part of a guided 4WD trip that continues south to the White Desert — most tours from Bawiti include both landscapes in a single day or overnight excursion. The most striking feature within the Black Desert proper is Gabal Dist (English Mountain), a prominent hill where British soldiers set up an observation post in the Second World War. The climb to the ruins takes about 45 minutes and rewards with a panorama over the entire oasis and surrounding desert.

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A story
The Black Desert's colour comes not from sand but from volcanic activity millions of years ago. The plateau here erupted repeatedly, covering the surface with basaltic rock that shattered into small dark fragments over millennia. The fragments coat every surface — hills, plains, individual stones — in a layer of shining black and dark brown that is completely unlike anything else in Egypt. White foxes, gazelles, and desert hares live in this landscape; their tracks in the pale sandy substrate between the dark rocks are often the only evidence of life.

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