Egypt Guide
The Western Desert Oases
Farafra Oasis
Farafra Oasis is renowned for its White Desert, which many tourists visit on safaris from Bahariya rather than from the oasis "capital", Qasr al-Farafra, a one-horse town if ever there was. Historically, Farafra Oasis was the least populous, most isolated of the four oases. When camels were the only means of travel, the Farafrans had less contact with Bahariya (a journey of four days) than with Dakhla, which was tenuously connected to the Forty Days Road. Fakhry relates how the villagers once lost track of time and could only ascertain the right day for Friday prayers by sending a rider to Dakhla. Before the paved road was built in 1978 it took 4WD and a winch truck a whole day to climb the Bahariya escarpment. Yet the oasis had dealings with the Nile Valley as early as the V Dynasty, when it was called Ta-ihw, the "Land of the Cow". Even today, Farafra's cows are of the same breed as those depicted in ancient tombs and temples (though no pharaonic monuments have been found in the oasis).
Qasr al-Farafra was the only village in the oasis before the New Valley scheme seeded a dozen hamlets across the depression, now inhabited by 15,000 settlers from the Assyut region or the Delta. Qasr has remained a tight-knit community of four extended families and is noted for its piety, apparent during Ramadan, when the mosque overflows with robed imams and sheikhs. Compared to Bahariya few people are involved in tourism so there's almost no hustling – but little to do at night either. Farafra is the sleepiest of all the oases and few tourists stay longer than a night in Qasr.