Farafra

Farafra is the smallest of the Western Egyptian Desert Oases in terms of population and cultivation with a population at a guess of around 5000. However it is located in the second largest depression in the Western Desert.
It can be reached by road from Cairo and busses are reasonably frequent. Farafra is mostly used by visitors to access the White and Black Deserts which are also on these pages. Farafra is a great walk and the houses are still of local design and mud brick construction. Local artists work is also on show and the following photography is mostly eclectic and not all that illuminating. The Badr Museum Gallery is a wonderful artists haven with huge pots of glaze materials and clays standing about in crowds of work in progress awaiting the kiln. There are also some local pussy cats doing what they do so very well in Egypt .
Farafra is associated with the loss of Cambyses army around 525 BC. Cambyses thought to subdue the Oasis population as they were performing some objectionable nose thumbing, and decided to attack Siwa. It was debated that his 50,000 strong army approached either from the Mediterranean or via the Oasis chain from Luxor on the Nile. It vanished in the Khamsin. Recently two Italian archaeologists Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni reported the possible discovery of artefacts and bones from the Army. There is a fascinating clip on uTube including interviews with Castiglioni and Darno del Bufalo of the University of Lecce. Go to :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ENizFYf96Y