The White Desert in Egypt is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Shining white limestone covers the surface and makes amazing rock formations in the sand, giving this place its name. I call it Paradise in Egypt.

My second visit to the White Desert, I was invited by my friend Mohammad Rashid, who was the head of the Unilever company a few years ago. He called me to say the President and Vice President of his company outside Egypt were visiting Egypt with their families and wished to visit Bahariya and the Valley of the Golden Mummies. I showed them my excavations and then we camped out in the White Desert overnight. We cooked a goat for dinner, in the traditional style of burying it in the sand and roasting it for 5 hours, which makes it very delicious. We all had a very nice dinner and stayed up late talking and watching the stars, which you can see so clearly out in the desert. I realized in the morning that I had an important meeting in Cairo, so I left the camp without telling anyone. An hour after I left a big storm came up and it was raining and windy. My companions joked that the pharaohs had told me about the storm, and that was why I had left without being caught in it.

This past week I returned to the desert with friends, and we camped by the area known as the Green Eye. This area has a well and is surrounded by green trees, forming a small oasis. This trip was very interesting, we met some Bedouins who invited us for a party with traditional music and dancing. They received me with greetings and cooked for my friends and me, and we all had a very nice party.

For the past few years, I have written many articles in papers saying that the White Desert and the Black Desert should be a national park. I used to see that the many tourists who came were destroying the area by taking crystal pieces from the Crystal Mountain and leaving their trash. I realized that if this continued, it could destroy this Paradise in Egypt, so I began to campaign to protect this area, and four years ago I was successful. Now the desert is a national park with a director who makes sure people use only one track instead of many, and there are people who collect the trash and keep the desert clean. There is even a police force working in the park making sure people follow the rules and giving tickets to anyone who disobeys. I am very happy to see this improvement, making the desert a national park to preserve its beauty for everyone to enjoy.