Nothing can beat night in the Egyptian desert. A camp fire blooms instantly from logs doused in petrol. The three Toyota Landcruisers are parked in a U-shape, and carpets hung around them to form a windbreak. "What's for dinner, Mohamed?" we cry to our guide. "Fox," Mohamed replies right on cue, which turns out to be barbecued chicken cooked in silver foil.

Later Mohamed teaches us to drum, beating out rhythms, which we ineptly imitate.

We leave the drumming to the Bedouins drivers, and Mohamed shows us dancing Bedouin-style. We try to swing our hips as sinuously as Mohamed. If the Bedouins are shocked , they hide it well.

The day is just as good. After breakfast, we are toppling up the side of a seif or sword dune. The trick is to find unbroken sand and move quickly. I leave Graham, a Canadian engineer, floundering about in soft sand
near the bottom while I climb rapidly to a ridge.

For half an hour, I am in dune heaven. Sitting at the summit of the dune, voices are coming up with stunning clarity from the encampment below. The dunes dazzle and shift as the sun rises higher. It is the most amazing - and totally calming - sight. In my mind I save it up and bottle it like malt whisky. I know it's going to be the perfect antidote to rush hour traffic jams and delayed Tube trains.

A few hours later we all go dune crazy. We are riding in the Landcruisers towards our lunch stop at Sitra oasis. Sometimes we descent slopes so steep the jeep must overturn. But the noonday light has tricked us, and before we know it, we are racing up the opposite slope. We don't know how we'll adjust to normal life again. For us only the desert is enough.

For Explore's programme of tours to Egypt click here.

Back to Done That...

We really like the people who send in their stories and poems. Their views are always worth listening to. Sometimes they might differ from that of Explore, but that's okay because the world is an interesting place and we like to discover and talk about it, even if we don't agree. Just so you know.