Dhakla Oasis

Another hotel room, another balcony, with the breeze blowing gently, and the afternoon sun gilding the simple surrounds. But this view is unlike the desert that has flanked the bitumen road we have driven along all day, the lush green vegetation Dhakla Oasis in Egypt's Western desert, where it never rains, yet date palms and olive trees thrive, taking their sustenance from underground water supplies. It is a cool afternoon, by Egyptian standards, yet the sprawling city is dead quiet- shop fronts closed up, the streets all but empty. A herd of goats and a lonely donkey graze silently on a grassy soccer pitch nearby.

On the horizon is Abu Tartur Plateau, the flat topped mountain range towering over the oasis in shades of white and beige, reminding those in it's shadow of the desert that surrounds them. Barren and lifeless.

In the township, houses are left unfinished or empty and there is a stillness in the air. This is a ghost town, we are told, forsaken for bigger, smoggier cities with industry and opportunity.

We are a long way from Cairo, from Luxor and from the overwhelming clamour of the souks and archaeological sites to which the tourists flock. No cruise ships dock in Dhakla.

I want to walk barefoot in the dense green fields and feel the fertile earth between my toes. This is our escape, from the traffic and the touts and from our lives, waiting for us across oceans. Yet how many who call this place their home would trade with us?

Tomorrow, we set off again, through the rocky hostile desert in search of other oases with bubbling springs and acres of sand.

And when we are gone, the donkey will still be pulling a loaded cart across the town, and the tractor will continue to plow. What will these people dream of, between the concrete slabs, behind mud brick walls? Of far away oceans, of snow and rainfall? Or of a thriving city rising up out of the desert like a mirage through the heat haze?

Down on the street below me they squat in the dust and chatter amongst themselves in words I can't understand, with dreams I'll never know.