Day Trip to Fayoum Oasis: Nature, Adventure, and History

An hour and a half southwest of Cairo the city stops and the Fayoum depression begins: a natural oasis fed by a branch of the Nile, ringed by desert, with a salt lake, a pottery village and one of the strangest fossil sites in the world. It is the easiest real escape from Cairo you can make and return from the same day. Tunis Village. A hillside village above Lake Qarun that became a pottery centre after a pottery school was set up here in the 1960s. Studios are open to visitors and you can watch wheels being thrown. Breakfast is here, and traditional feteer, the layered Egyptian pastry, is the thing to order. Wadi El Rayan. Two lakes linked by the best-known waterfalls in Egypt, created in the 1970s when agricultural drainage was diverted into the desert. The dunes above the lower lake are where the sandboarding happens. Wadi Al Hitan, the Valley of the Whales. A UNESCO World Heritage Site holding the fossilised skeletons of early whales that still had hind legs, preserved where a shallow sea once covered the Sahara. The skeletons lie in the open desert along a marked walking trail with an excellent small museum. This site is optional, at extra cost and on request, because it adds significant driving time; ask when you book if it matters to you. How the day runs. Departure from Cairo is at 9:00 AM. Travel is by van with a 4x4 for the desert sections, with a local guide throughout. Breakfast and lunch are included, and there is a boat trip on the water. When to go. October to April. The desert sections are genuinely unpleasant in high summer, and the light for photography is far better in the cooler months. Bring closed shoes, sunglasses and a windproof layer, as the wind off the lakes is constant.