Experience the best of Farafra

Farafra is an oasis town in the Western Desert, in Egypt's New Valley Governorate, roughly midway between the Dakhla and Bahariya oases. It sits in a depression of about 980 square kilometres and is the least populous of the region's oases, with a few thousand people, mainly Bedouin. Parts of the old town keep traditional mud-coloured buildings, and a museum in the old town shows the work of a local artist.

More than a hundred wells water the area. Bir Sitta, Well 6, has warm, slightly sulphurous water used for swimming, and the Ain Bishay spring waters a grove of date palms, olive, apricot, citrus and carob trees. The White Desert, a national park about 45 kilometres north of the town, is a plain of chalk rocks shaped by sandstorms into mushrooms and other odd forms.

Dates, olives and apricots from the oasis gardens turn up at every meal, with bread baked in clay ovens and strong sweet tea. Rain almost never falls. The days are hot, and the winter nights are surprisingly cold.