Q about Egypt Sahara
 

Hello!
I and my friends (2 cars, 6 persons) are going to go on oases of Egypt from Cairo in December. There are some questions.
1. How in oases with fuel for cars?
2. For journey from Siwa in Bahrija documents (permits) are necessary. Them do in police? How many they stand? How many they do on time?
3. Whether there is a road from an oasis of Harga in Abu Simbel?
Can be at somebody there is a GPS-TRACK for travel from Siwa in Bahrija?
Dmitry

Egypt Siwa Bahariya Oasis Route
 

hi Dmitri

you need a permission for Siwa - Bahariya, you can get it in the Tourist Office within 24 hours.
Maybe you must even take an officer or guide with you - its not quite clear who does and who does not ;-)
The road is partially tarred, but mainly a dusty piste - you don't need wpts
Fuel is usually no problem in the Oasis

Ursula

Mahdi
 

Siwa Tourist Office: director Mr. Mahdi Hweiti mahdi_hweiti at yahoo.com

Thank you!!!

I've been along the Siwa - Bahariya road this past March, give up all hope! The road is only passable with a 4wd, there are a couple of sandy stretches with practically liquid sand completely covering the 'road' at about 70 kms from Siwa. The road is under construction, so you have stretches of excellent tarmac that last 5-10 kilometres, then 20-30 kilometres of completely corrugated and potholed stretches, with terrain too soft along the sides to go there. Plan a full day (12 hours) to do it.

Siwa to Bahariya road
 

We have traveled this road but from Bahariya to Siwa 3 weeks ago, took us about 8 hours and we had a trailer. Sand is loose in places but nothing worth worrying about.

I have a track log if you are still interested

Interesting, so it seems there is some work along the road. Did you see any roadworks in progress ? In March there was nobody...

Road from Siwa to Bahariya
 

There was no work being done. The road is corrugated in places, the asphalt is falling away in places but look at the tracks along the road and you will quickly see where the locals drivers leave the asphalt and drive on the sand. You will have the hang of it quite quickly and then the going is quite easy, one thing though, some of the military check points aren't directly on the road so you will have to pull off, they don't like it if you skip these check points :nono:

Dear Andrasz, with all the respect, looks like you're forgetting this is an off-roaders' forum and not a nail-polishers' forum. So please, give some respect to the others, too.

Cheers,
DS

Hi ds,

With all respect, this is not an off-roaders forum, but an overlanders forum. Read more posts form Andras and you'll soon be able to appreciate the difference. For off-roaders forum, please exit here: http://www.offroaders.com/ :D

Dear DS

With fullest respect, I would have loved to see you struggle through single handed along the particular stretch of 'road' I was talking about :) I've seen a few patches of sand, believe me if it takes 2 hours for an unladen HZJ 75 to get accross 600 metres, I'd call that stretch pretty bad...

No offence taken, but suggest you do some reading before you make statements.

What is wrong with you people? Siwa Bahariya is not off road, it is only a unfinished road.

We did the Siwa- Bah. road begining of Aug. last year. We needed 14 hours (2 4WD cars) and we were digging from time to time.

We did it end of Aug. this year again. We neded 7 hours alone. Road was cleaned one week before. No problems, no digging,.......

They take care and are trying to finish this road. Comparing to the last year the stretches of good tarmack are longer. But they are working during the winter I guess.

But still don t go with only 2WD you ll need at least one 4WD. And yes, you can not travel unguarded (police OR guide) Police is cheaper, but in this case you normally have to do it in one day.
If you pay a guide he will organise everything, according to how much you pay, and going from Bahariya to Siwa is also possible.

OK, to tie off loose ends and make it clearer for any who have not passed along:

This road was surfaced some 15-20 years ago. This original tarmac has been eroded by traffic/sand/wind to an extremely potholed and rutted surface, with really bad corrugation in places where the surfacing is missing altogether. Sure, it is passable, either below 30 or over 70 if you do not value your suspension. In many places the going is better in the desert beside the road, but due to everyone doing it, that too is badly corrugated, and frequent soft spots force the tracks back to the road.

Since about 2 years there have been roadworks, building a new embankment with a good tarmac road on top (to avoid getting covered with blown sand). When ready, this road will be on par (or better) with the oasis circuit road. However at present less than 20% is complete, a short stretch just outside Bahariya, and several isolated stretches (don't ask for logic) of 2-10 kilometres between Siwa and Sitra (but nothing beyond as of March this year). The embankment is complete till around half-way, but it is so corrugated that the same applies as for the old tarmac.

Around 70 kilometres from Siwa a tongue of the Sand-Sea juts into the path of the road. It was bad enough before the roadworks started, but since then a pile of soft rubble has been piled on both sides of the road along this stretch, that captures the sand in a deep rut, and with soft sand on both sides too, there is no way out (again, March). The sand is very soft (you sink in to your ankles if on foot) because it is constantly churned by passing vehicles, and at least a metre deep, so the going is much worse than enywhere on open sand. Of course a friendly bulldozer can change the conditions in a few hours, apparently I was there after a longer stretch without any passing by. I have not seen any signs of recent construction work on the road, however Jean's report indicates that there is some periodical cleaning going on.

PS: at the time we went, there was no need for any escort, just the paperwork, which we managed to get in Siwa in an afternoon.

Road to Siwa
 

As I said, no biggy toward the end of August.

One thing though, even if this road is bad at times you have to think of the alternative which seems to be to drive Bahariya, Cairo (I'd face any corrugations not to drive there), Marsa Matruoh and then down to Siwa. At best this constitutes 2 days of hard driving and the road from Marsa Matrouh down to Siwa was the most boring we experienced in a while.

The road from Siwa to Bahariya has awesome scenery in places, some oasis and lovely dunes, large parts of it skirts the Great Sand Sea so lots of scenery, we really enjoyed it a lot. Even if you take 2 days to drive it, it's still better than the alternative. We used a book called The Western Desert of Egypt by Casandra Vivian, it has a lot of info on the things to see on this road.

I've driven Siwa to Bahariya about a dozen times but not since about 2001 or so. I'll be going again this December.
My confusion occurs with the mention from matafi1 that he needed a guide/Police.

You never did before, Andrasz, who travels around here regularly, didn't/doesn't and Jean Visser? Did you?
Or matafi1, were you swindled into having one? Who said you must - the guide you contacted?