Product Description

'Last night my son wanted to appease me because of some annoyance he had caused. "Show me your desert things," he said, "show me your crystals and stones." However tired and grumpy I might be, he knew how to revive me. I unwrapped everything from its newspaper roll. The chipped flint knives, the silica glass arrowheads, ancient porous pottery shards I'd found in the Gilf, fossils, the jawbone of a gazelle, palm nuts so desiccated they were like stone . . .' Robert Twigger's latest journey is in search of paradise: a desert adventure in the footsteps of seasoned explorers such as Theodore Almasy (the Inspiration for THE ENGLISH PATIENT) who tried to locate the lost oasis of Zezura, reportedly home to hoards of treasure, flocks of birds and a lush, verdant valley. The Egyptian Sahara is one of the most arid and hostile environments on earth. But it is also a wonder of desolate beauty, where in the ultra-clear light of the desert you can see for miles. Armed with plenty of water and a homemade wooden trolley (his Lada being too heavy for the sand), Twigger embarks on a desert trip ilke no other . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #310184 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

THE OBSERVER
'Robert Twigger's latest travel odyssey is a search for a fabled oasis in the Egyptian Sahara... full of little gems'

Review
"an amusing tale" (SUNDAY TIMES )

DUNCAN FALLOWELL, DAILY EXPRESS
"Twigger is such a charmer, delightful and poignant by turns."

Customer Reviews

Ice Cold in Cairo - A very refreshing read!
I honestly enjoyed reading Lost Oasis. It comes across as a small traveller's notebook, yet it's stuffed full of colourful incident and observation. This does not take you away from the readiness and reality of each part of Twigger's journey and various "Starts"!

His journey starts with a move of family and life from England to Cairo and the boundless promise of the Desert. Here begins a light-hearted search for a fabulous and factual "Lost Oasis" within the vast Sahara.

I come away from reading this book a little more interested in Egypt but also really excited at the potential for my next travels. A big recommendation for Lost Oasis and the stories I discovered in this excellent travel book.

Twigger's search for paradise
If I were a man, I wouldn't mind to be someone like Robert Twigger. You know the type? You would never be short of ideas, see possibilities where other people see problems and you would embark on the most crazy and bizar adventures, enjoy every minute of it and on top of that write a great book about your experiences.
Twigger takes on challenges most people only dare dream about, or maybe not even that. It takes a sparkling mind to come up with ideas like Twigger has: search for the longest snake on earth, build a berch canoe in the middle of a forest and peddle for months on end along the river, go on an expedition to find a new species and give it your family name.
In Lost Oasis his wanderlust takes Twigger to the Western Desert of Egypt, in the footsteps of famous explorers like the German Gerhard Rohlfs and the Hungarian count Almasy. Never mind if you've read a zillion books about the desert, this one is different. It's a 'Twigger'.

Pleasant enough but a little pointless
This is an autobiographical account of Robert Twigger's first year living in Eygpt. He leaves England for a cheaper life and yearns to explore the desert. It is written in the familiar, self deprecating and chatty style which makes his books such a pleasure to read, but this is not in the same class as his fantastic epic 'Voyageur' which I consider to be one of the best contemporary travel adventure books available. This book feels incomplete. The well researched introductory chapters filled me with anticipation of more hardy adventures into the unknown, but he never quite manages to fulfil those ambitions, and as such I'm not sure that I understand the point of the book. If Twigger does go on to explore the desert in future this will certainly be a great introduction, as it is a very pleasing book to read, but it needs that grand finale of a real boys own adventure. That's what us armchair travellers want to read. Perhaps there were economic or contractual reasons for publishing what seems to be such an incomplete tale. Maybe the big journey will happen. Until it does I would have to stick to recommending Voyageur without reservation, and suggest that the desert tales be left until later when there is something to justify the book.