Photo of the day: a day in the desert… in a single picture. A million stars hotel…

I thought I could write a post about this, but honestly I think that the photo speaks for itself. Just a few words will be more than enough!

It’s “Eid el Adha” these days in Egypt, that means everyone has a week off for the feast. Me and a couple of friends I met at the Characters of Egypt camp organized this trip to the desert, precisely Wadi el 7itan (7=aspirated h) and Wadi el Rayan, in the Fayoum area, about 2 hours south of Cairo.

I took this photo on the second night, when we camped between two dunes, literally in the middle of nothing. It was the first time for me to camp in a place without any sort of facility – no electricity, no toilets and no water AL ALL. I slept in my sleeping bag laying on the sand, and it was oh-so-freezing – but waking up in the middle of the night and seeing all those stars is just priceless and worth losing a night of good sleep. This is what I call “a million stars hotel!” (and just a quick note: no accommodation fee…)

I thought about cropping the picture as I am totally obsessed with composition and this one just doesn’t look perfect – but then I decided to leave it as it is, because it tells the story of the day:

10 people, 2 4×4 cars (one under my camera :p), the dunes, a looot of sand, sandboarding (see boards on the right side).

The sky. The fire. Simplicity. Peace.

Please click to enlarge

Will probably write about the rest of the trip soon :-)