During my stay in the Libyan Desert in Egypt I wrote a travel diary with information about the route, places, situations and, above all, sensations of an adventure as the Expedition was Kamal. Starting today we will desgrananando day to day these notes, chapter by chapter with the telling of the adventures in the present by the most extraordinary landscapes of unusual desert deserts in North Africa.
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In the first chapter we talk about the origin of this tour as ambitious, full arrival of questions and dreams and how to Cairo in El Kharga we forget the road to make our own shot in the sand. A unique convoy and camps in the light of the moon, where silence could be heard to dictate our next steps before going to bed.
March 13, 2014: Day 1
17:00 (Flying over the Mediterranean)
First notes on Egyptair plane Madrid - Cairo about this Egyptian planned route for a total of two weeks. Tickling my stomach wanders only two hours to reach Cairo. I still can not believe I'm about to enjoy one of the trips of my life. I make this journey alone and chiming thousand questions in my head.
Meanwhile I not stop reading "Swimmers in the desert", which includes the notes of Laszlo Almasy, known as the English Patient, who is discovered as a character even more bold and with an even more intense life which shows us the film winning nine Oscars of Hollywood in which outweighs a romantic drama invented an extraordinary reality. I have received this masterpiece of Almásy's expeditions to the Libyan desert (for Egyptians "Western Desert" and leave everyone happy East Sahara) to two hours to get on this plane. She was discontinued and only one library of Zaragoza had the only copy sales catalogs indicating consulted on the internet (and not all). My father helped me with the book asking a friend from Zaragoza to buy it and send it by express mail. Anyway, I have the most adventurous memories of Almasy in my power, the stories of pioneers crossing impassable deserts tougher than we could imagine in the interwar vehicles.
I am passionate about the character and history is my personal Bible during the following days. At the moment I attend word for word what this Hungarian Count narrates in first person about the route of the forty days (Darb El Arbe'in), as old as the Egypt of the Pharaohs who was busy tour of hundreds of thousands of slaves from Central Africa, which was known as "two-legged cattle." Here, guided by evil overseers, made a long journey of forty days in the perishing almost 90% of the human merchandise before reaching glimpse of the Nile due to the difficulties of a way in which any mistake was fatal. The famous Prince Kamal, its highest sponsor is already mentioned in this peculiar journey and who gives name to the issue we are about to undertake, with its caterpillar cars used to travel and map first part of the plateau of Gilf Kebir (which gave it its name). Warns trails of ancient skulls bleached by a fierce sun hits that road of sand and stones to make it one of the most arid and inhospitable regions of our planet.
I can not stop thinking about the days to come, in that total disconnection from the real world and information. For a while I will be ignorant of what happens beyond an area of no more than one hundred meters, to dispense with the super-exposure to which we submit willingly with which we are most familiar and are interconnected, but lose probably some freedom.
I do not know why, but I feel that this trip to the desert was what had been waiting for many years. For this sense I think that traveling beyond any logical reasoning you may have. It is a sick unconditional love, though often unrequited, and is too far from any convention or conformist thought. Travel is an emotional storm that never finds a full stop ...
Midnight (in my room at the Hilton Ramses Hotel)
It has not changed traffic chaos in Cairo. The journey between the airport and the hotel was more than one hour. It seemed that we did not move the many bridges and roads crowded that we had to take before reaching the Ramses Hilton Hotel where they have put us to the participants of the Expedition Kamal. This trip has more significance in Egypt than he could imagine, under intended operating. We do not have much time to enjoy the hotel and the next day we have the opening ceremony, ministers, press and organization at the headquarters of the Automobile & Touring Club of Egypt.
I have had the opportunity to meet several members of the expedition, including the only Spanish I will see in these two weeks. This is Andrew Magai, a photographer of flag with soul of travelers. We have dinner together and my first impression of him in person (had discussed above) is really good. I get that we will get along very well. It is another love of deserts and is about such people who either you are going to fall over the house, as it is more outside than inside.
After the window of the room we saw the Nile river barges crossed by a brightness that surpassed extravagance. Sound horns on the 21st floor of the Hilton. I have to get up in less than six hours but did not want to sleep without leaving a word in the travel diary I promise to take care of here until the end of the route.
Tomorrow begins the good. How different is the place where we sleep. These amenities are an illusion compared to what we will have in the desert.
March 14, 2014: Day 2
11:47 hours (plane to El Kharga)
As I leaf through the window of the airplane propeller that moves to the expedition from Cairo to El Kharga oasis I can not help but leave a few words in this logbook of the trip. I just phone my girlfriend goodbye and knowing that my mother will not talk in weeks and have a sour taste in his mouth. On the one hand I know that I will miss the people and on the other I am increasingly aware that this adventure is the one time in life.
Today we had the presentation of the issue in the Automobile & Touring Club of Egypt with the organizers and the words of the Minister of Tourism of the country. This has been a two-year work, "a dream ready to come true" which I do not know yet how I saw my name inscribed inside. Media coverage of the event in Egypt is tremendous and I've seen speaking for the first time in English on TV. You better subtitled me because otherwise I will not understand that anyone born in Carabanchel English with a teacher who smoked cigars in class.
The organization of the expedition is German, so we ensure order, discipline and pinpoint accuracy. We have a doctor, a great safety equipment and military guarding our steps to ensure our security in this part of Egypt between two borders as Libya and Sudan ..
Important is Kamal Expedition have published a book for the occasion in which masterfully contextualizes the trip. Information on routes Kamal, Almasy and company is quite low in terms of digital media, so this book is perfect for me to understand the peculiarities of an area that until recently was a white patch on the map. Thanks to the pioneers, the brave who never conformed, we can have more knowledge of one of the most remote and isolated areas of the Libyan Desert.
One thing gives me goosebumps. Kamal Expedition will be the biggest human and vehicular movement in the area of Gilf Kebir since World War II. They are thirty three cars and about a hundred people in total which share this time in the Great Sand Sea and jebels (stone hills in Arabic) in this remote corner in the southwest Egyptian.
I look out the window again and is just sand. It's the desert. We travel to the depths of it, live it every single day and night. This is not the Egypt of the pharaohs, the fertile Nile silt which made the natural foundations of the most exciting civilization that may have existed. As commented in the presentation "The place we're going is the real origin of Egypt, of the nomadic peoples who inhabited a very different Sahara there now."
19:26: In an indeterminate a few kilometers from El Kharga place
The arrival of El Kharga Oasis has a little "Welcome Mr. Marshall" in Egyptian version. The Governor of the province himself received shipment to door and there have been many onlookers who have come to see us and photograph us with their cameras and mobile phones.
For the first time we saw our cars, more than thirty in total. Which we happen to Andrew and me, shared with an Egyptian named Islam, a Toyota Hilux is quite breaded. His name is Inch Allah, meaning "God willing" and that was the 
name given by Laszlo Almasy a vehicle used by him in 1933 during his second expedition in search of Oasis Zerzura. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in this adventure is hazardous. The almost two years of preparation to carry it out have served to give the trip a truly unique touch. We are told again and again "This issue is now not going to repeat again, at least in this way and in many years." Perhaps say to make us feel proud and probably has an effect on who we are as a real fortunate to be part of this story commemorating the 81st anniversary of the placement by Almasy the memorial to Kamal el Din at the foot of Gilf Kebir. It would have been a year earlier, to round the number to 80, but the revolts in Egypt prevented. One way or another we were waiting for this occasion. For some reason that escapes reason has been, this trip has been a quite casually, like all true.
name given by Laszlo Almasy a vehicle used by him in 1933 during his second expedition in search of Oasis Zerzura. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in this adventure is hazardous. The almost two years of preparation to carry it out have served to give the trip a truly unique touch. We are told again and again "This issue is now not going to repeat again, at least in this way and in many years." Perhaps say to make us feel proud and probably has an effect on who we are as a real fortunate to be part of this story commemorating the 81st anniversary of the placement by Almasy the memorial to Kamal el Din at the foot of Gilf Kebir. It would have been a year earlier, to round the number to 80, but the revolts in Egypt prevented. One way or another we were waiting for this occasion. For some reason that escapes reason has been, this trip has been a quite casually, like all true.
It has been amazing to see the procession from first. Thirty or SUVs, guarded front and back by Egyptian police has brought us to a moment when we are left standing waiting for the military to give us the need to leave our cars El Kharga with permission. It seemed a pittance but it has taken us more than two hours, delaying plans and having few options move enough before sunset approaching. I have spent time chatting and listening to paseándonos from mosques the faithful to prayer is claimed. It was, really, the last bureaucratic process of this border post located hundreds of kilometers from Libya or Sudan. The real border was far but no more populations east of El Kharga.
Drivers have lowered the tire pressure of 4 × 4 to drive better on the sand right in the moment when we left the asphalt. Once done with this necessary step we advanced a few kilometers. The dust raised by the cars in front did not stop us enjoying a panorama of dunes and black stones randomly scattered across the desert. But before we knew it, being five in the afternoon, we stopped to establish the first camp of the expedition.
The organization has been very measured and all we have done with our tents, pillows and sleeping bags. On the other hand they have set up a makeshift kitchen, sheltered from the wind seats where you can chat over a cup of tea or coffee, and we have shown a portable toilets retaíla shovel to dig included. Again, this issue has been studied in detail for many months. And that, he notes.
First camp and therefore first sunset. In the desert is an event, a poem of defined lines and restrained emotion exactly to its glorious end. The last word dictates the big star, huge and orange, which is hidden to the side watching in our cars and tents. Suddenly the silence, pink pointing down shyly some footsteps, and the relentless pursuit of a hot tea to escape across the mountains of black stones next to us and revel in the silence. It was English tea supermarket, but has known me as if he had been prepared with the utmost pampering.
We hope dinner and talked about our places of origin, peculiarities of this country called Egypt. In short, we know a little better. Come to Tarek, Karim, Stephan and other thinkers arena that have made all this possible. Meanwhile the full moon is a powerful beacon in the night that makes lanterns are unnecessary. Who needs artificial light when the moon that lights you up?
I hear many languages within a few meters, the fire heated dinner turned into a mystery, as the wind cools more and more. I came to doubt whether I have been warm enough for what lies ahead. A long night and know.
Let's see what is it that it smells so good and continues at the stake ...
March 15, 2014: Day 3
Kilometers, sand and mirages in the desert
A cold night in the desert is longer than normal. Or sleeping bag and warm clothes to go to bed has helped me as I wanted. Not that I could play very supportive with some shops nearby campaign that propelled a challenge horrible snoring. Still it was not more offended than necessary, since no one sleeps every night in the desert or an adventure ahead of this magnitude.
The mobilization of such a large group is complex, especially in the morning when you have to fend for washing (sometimes as cats), breakfast, pick stores and back to the car at the stipulated time. But surprisingly we are expecting an accuracy only revolutionized by a pesky paperwork the day before that is making us go behind the plans. "Prisa kills, friend" say in these parts. Here's to kill you like a stone falls and do not take it patiently. Assume soon "desert time" and forget about the city is a must for those who want to settle quickly to this new context.
Today was day of "bugger off". The landscape, although monotonous appearance, was electrifying, especially in those moments when we could be witnessing some outstanding mirages. In my case they have been the most intense I've ever lived in a desert. In the middle of nowhere were evidentísimos lakes and ponds reflecting the shape of the stone hills horizon. But a few seconds rolling on the sand with the 4 × 4 enough to realize it was a visual deception, a mirage.Or, as they say here, "sareb" something are so used that surprised us both call attention to foreigners. I saw mirages on many occasions, but as of today in this tapestry of Libyan never Desert.
The most interesting thing from cars was when we put them in a row and seemed troops ready to invade what put us ahead. Some of the vehicles Egyptians say flashy banners, which helps to have this image motorized battle in the desert.
At this time I could shoot, team chat to people in vehicles and in the various stops we have been doing and, above all, read. No loose "Swimmers in the desert" and stop right here imagine how his scenes were real. The search Zerzura Oasis is actually common in all of us and not only Almasy. But they gave that becomes the first step, the hardest. Others we really do not follow shot, but also have our particular Zerzura head.
G-Hills: Signal for aircraft in World War II
After eating sausage in pita bread on a provisional shadow we have formed three vehicles has been the 
last ride of the day, and one of the points that we had marked on the map with an X. We stopped in what is known as G- Hills, a kind of signal indicating a space aterrizaja aircraft made in the thirties with dozens of cans of gasoline set into the sand. The role of the camp that there were no fewer than eight decades ago is still unknown, but it is certainly a mark of aerial surveys of an area without properly mapping. An area that would be essential in the post World War II who ruled North Africa ruled Africa directly. During this trip we will see many signs of this conflict not only lived in Normandy, Paris, Berlin or Stalingrad as many think. This desert area of Egypt, Libya and Sudan also was a board game in which the best strategy was to know how to get around dunes and hills that it was better to have friends than enemies of. And so Almasy, the English Patient was instrumental in certain times of the Second World War. All distrusted him for his intelligence and ambiguity, but all he wanted at his side. The documentation has shown that the time was Rommel, the Desert Fox, whom the upper hand eventually took.
last ride of the day, and one of the points that we had marked on the map with an X. We stopped in what is known as G- Hills, a kind of signal indicating a space aterrizaja aircraft made in the thirties with dozens of cans of gasoline set into the sand. The role of the camp that there were no fewer than eight decades ago is still unknown, but it is certainly a mark of aerial surveys of an area without properly mapping. An area that would be essential in the post World War II who ruled North Africa ruled Africa directly. During this trip we will see many signs of this conflict not only lived in Normandy, Paris, Berlin or Stalingrad as many think. This desert area of Egypt, Libya and Sudan also was a board game in which the best strategy was to know how to get around dunes and hills that it was better to have friends than enemies of. And so Almasy, the English Patient was instrumental in certain times of the Second World War. All distrusted him for his intelligence and ambiguity, but all he wanted at his side. The documentation has shown that the time was Rommel, the Desert Fox, whom the upper hand eventually took.
In G-Hills there was only metal gasoline cans with the date recorded in 1932 and 1933 are preserved as if time had not passed, cans, some labeling in the UK. That war is living archeology, which very few come and meet with impressive.
After this air sign, which we should have come yesterday if it were not for the military, we have advanced an hour car to establish our second camping trip in the middle of an esplanade of sand. This time there is no hill with us and has been less spectacular sunset in a cloud of dust that would not leave our horizon.
Gidkska Anderson, desert vegetation expert at the University of Bergen, has been telling us the particularities of several species that remain despite an extreme lack of rain in the Libyan Desert. It was the first of several conferences in the light of the moon that we have provided in the Expedition Kamal. I confess that I could not endure full and I used to bring order to the notes taken today.
I hope I can sleep better than yesterday. I think wrap myself with more layers than an onion and abstract from snoring strangers, even throwing roses into the desert to a tent. Tomorrow we have a long road ahead. If nothing prevents at last reach Gilf Kebir, the vast plateau that put name Prince Kamal, who unknowingly is our patron
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