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: #460214 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.

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.

Desert adventures
Author and adventurer Robert Twigger moves to live in Cairo and to explore the desert of Egypt hoping to discover the location of a legendary oasis. Through his adventures, Twigger meets a series of colourful characters engaged in similar quests and is seduced by the endless opportunity for adventure offered by the desert.
Twigger's engaging account is as strong on the challenges of Egyptian bureaucracy and there are hilarious accounts of his attempts to secure a flat and to move his family and his possessions into his residence. He pursuses his explorations tenaciously, bribing mysterious parking attendants to secure maps and participating in a variety of drives through the desert oases in which he learns the perils of desert driving.
His relaxed writing style allows him to explain the experiences of previous explorers in a manner that never becomes tedious and or feels like a lecture and he is always awake to the absurdities of his own situation.
This enjoyable account comes to the end as Twigger finishes his first year in Cairo leaving us to wonder if he has continued his adventures.