Bahariya Oasis

Why stop in Bahariya?

Bahariya is where every White Desert trip changes from tarmac to 4WD, but it is worth time of its own: a green depression of date palms, olive groves and springs with monuments spanning 2,500 years. Bawiti, the main town, has the oasis's museum, its lodges and the market; the older villages of El Qasr, Mandisha and Agouz sit among the gardens a few kilometres away.

The oasis was an important stop on desert routes in pharaonic times and grew rich under the Greeks and Romans, when its wine was known in the Nile Valley. Most visitors rush through on the way south. Staying a night, before or after the desert, lets you see the tombs, swim in a spring and cut a long day on the road in two.

The Golden Mummies in Bawiti

A small museum in Bawiti displays a selection of the Golden Mummies, Graeco-Roman burials with gilded and painted cartonnage masks and chest pieces, from a vast cemetery found near the town in 1996. The story of the find, traditionally said to begin when a guard's donkey stumbled into a tomb, and what the excavations revealed is told in our Valley of the Golden Mummies guide.

The cemetery itself is not open to visitors, so the museum is the place to see the mummies. The display is compact: allow 20–30 minutes. Look at the faces, each painted with individual features, and the gilded scenes of gods on the chest coverings, a fusion of Egyptian funerary tradition and Roman-era portraiture. For the beliefs behind them, see our guide to mummification.

What else is there to see?

Bawiti's other highlights are a pair of painted tombs, a group of chapels from the 26th Dynasty and the scant remains of a temple linked to Alexander the Great.

• Tombs of Qarat Qasr Salim: in a low mound inside the town, the tombs of Zed-Amun-ef-ankh and his son Banentiu, 26th Dynasty officials, have colourful painted scenes of the funerary gods, the weighing of the heart and offerings.
• Ain el-Muftella: a group of chapels on the edge of town, built in the 26th Dynasty, with reliefs of the gods, now under a protective roof.
• Temple of Alexander the Great: south-west of Bawiti, low sandstone and mud-brick walls where the Egyptologist Ahmed Fakhry identified Alexander's name in the 1930s. Little survives, so it is for enthusiasts; read our Alexander the Great guide first.

The sites are managed by Egypt's antiquities authority, and at times a single ticket covering several of them has been sold at the museum. Opening hours and which tombs are open can change, so check egymonuments.gov.eg or ask your guide before you go.

Hot springs and the landscape around Bawiti

Bahariya's springs range from warm to genuinely hot, and a soak after a dusty day in the desert is one of the best things you can do here. Many feed simple concrete tanks used to irrigate the gardens, so expect a rustic pool rather than a spa.

• Bir Sigam and Bir el-Ghaba: two of the springs most often visited from Bawiti; Bir el-Ghaba, a little further out, is also used as a campsite.
• Lodge springs: several of Bawiti's lodges have their own spring-fed pools, which give more privacy.
• Gebel Dist: the pyramid-shaped hill near Bawiti where an American-led team found the giant dinosaur Paralititan stromeri around 2000, in rocks that also yielded Spinosaurus to the German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer in the early 20th century.

Dress modestly at the springs: men in shorts, women in a T-shirt and leggings. Bahariya is a conservative community, and evening is when local families may also come to bathe.

How long to stay and getting there

Spend at least half a day, and ideally a night, in Bahariya: drive from Cairo in the morning, visit the museum and tombs in the afternoon, soak in a spring at sunset and head into the desert the next day. The 370 km road from Cairo runs south-west through open desert from the city's western suburbs; there is a rest-stop roughly halfway and several police checkpoints.

From Bawiti, the Black Desert is a short drive south, followed by Crystal Mountain and the White Desert. Bahariya also connects to Siwa by a desert track of roughly 400 km, possible only with a permit that is not always granted; the White Desert and Siwa 9-day tour includes this region. Travel advice for the Western Desert can differ from the Nile Valley: check Smartraveller or SafeTravel before booking.