Is one night of camping better than nothing?

For those of us who have children, work and responsibilities in the city, a leisurely camping adventure in the desert can be a hard feat to pull off.

The idea of being cut off from the world for an extended period of time may not actually sound all that relaxing. In fact, it can cause acute anxiety for even the most passionate of nature-lovers.

After a good 20 years out of the camping game, maybe that's why a condensed, one-night trip in the desert sounded so appealing to me. What could go wrong? I would only have to give up my usual weekend responsibilities and not cut into work time or the kids’ school time.

We packed our bags and met at 7 am (well, 8:30, actually — we were traveling with seven children, after all) and headed out in a minibus to Bahareya, an oasis 360 km southwest of Cairo and close to various types of desert. The place is known for its date production, and was isolated until a paved road connecting Bahareya to Cairo and the rest of urban Egypt was finished in the 1970s.

When renting a minibus it's best to get one that has more seats than you need, if you can afford it. As I learned in my second minibus travel experience in the past year, booking a 12-seater for 12 people is a terrible idea. You forget that you have bags, that you like to stretch out and that you’ll be in the car for an extended period of time. It is approximately four hours to get to Bahareya from Cairo.

When each adult or couple has an extra seat, a four-hour trip becomes much more manageable. You know that happy feeling after finding that the seat (or better still, seats) next to you are free on an airplane? That’s the idea. So with enough leg/bag/food/movement room, we all headed off in good spirits, taking little naps and passing snacks from one end of the bus to the other.

It was lunchtime when we got to Bahareya. We had signed on with a great pair of Bahareya residents for our trip — Ali and Kofta — and they were providing the bus, the Land Cruisers for the trip into the desert, the tents, the sleeping bags, warm camel hair blankets and our food. Lunch was a stack of fresh baladi bread and platters of tuna, Egyptian vita cheese, white cheese with tomatoes and egg with tomato. They also provided fresh vegetables and fruits: lettuce, cucumbers, oranges and apples.

We transitioned from the minibus to Land Cruisers and continued on the path to the White Desert National Park, famous for its Mesozoic Era chalk formations sculpted into mysterious shapes by hundreds of years of sandstorms. But because we had started so late, it was impossible to stop at the Crystal Mountain or the Farkha (a chalk rock formation in the shape of a chicken) or any of the other spots. We stopped twice to jump out and take a picture and jump back in to get to the campsite before nightfall.

At the site, we set up the tents ourselves. Ali’s son and son-in-law, Ahmed and Mohamed, helped us as the wind picked up and brought our things down from the Land Cruisers. The three cars were set up in such a way as to create a wind block, a foundation for the main eating tent and a sleeping area for the crew. They provided us with foam mattresses and sleeping bags to furnish the tents, and got to work cooking dinner and setting up the fire.

Dinner was grilled chicken cooked on the fire and torli (a dish of mixed vegetables cooked in a tomato base). We piled the children into the tents and sat with Ali to talk desert ghost stories. The fire died and the night was cold, but the camel hair blankets protected us from the weather and kept us dry in the morning dew.

The next day, we all wandered off to climb the white hills and looked for black volcanic rock and crystals. The morning was cut short by a sandstorm, though, and we frantically packed up the cars and headed out of the desert.

The way back was stressful — visibility varied and night fell quickly. We had to stop for a bite to eat and were blessed again with Ali’s family cooking: fish and rice sayadeya. The pile of children with us had a number of evening bathroom stops, and we never could have done it without a plentiful supply of wipes and changes of clothes (keep clean clothes for the drive back!).

Out of our almost 48 hours outside Cairo, only 24 of which were spent awake, ten were spent in some sort of vehicle. Despite seeing quite a few sites and getting the kids out of the city, the weekend was not enough to really enjoy the camping or the trip.  Ali and his crew are great guides and highly recommended, but I’d emphasize that two or three nights at the site are essential to make it worth the drive.