The White Desert · As If Someone Made It and Then Left

The White Desert is full of white rock pillars and mushroom-shaped stones, carved by wind and sand out of seabed deposits laid down tens of millions of years ago; at sunrise and sunset the shadows stretch out very long, and it looks like an emptied city.

The Bedouin camp on the sheltered side of the pillars, and at night they listen to the sound of wind passing through the stone. They say the wind of the White Desert has a name.

The most practical rule here is this: do not drive off the hard ground, and do not walk into the pillars alone — go round inside them once and the way back has changed.

Natural Mysteries / New Valley · Egypt / Time immemorial