Siwa

Last weekend a group of us took a trip to Siwa, which is an Oasis in the western desert in Egypt, near the Libyan border.
Day 1- The trip started with us hopping on a night bus from Alexandria to Siwa. As usual, this was an adventure. The bus was overbooked and people ended up standing in the aisle. Most of us were seated in the back of the bus and the air-conditioning was not working, so it was extremely hot!! Overall it was an uncomfortable 7 hour ride and most of us slept very little. We arrived in Siwa around 5:30 am and went to the lobby of small hotel to wait for our guide. We slept a little on the chairs in the lobby.
When our guide arrived, we ate breakfast and went on a tour of Siwa in donkey carts. This was interesting. Siwa was absolutely gorgeous. We visited the mountain of the dead and got to go inside a few tombs as well as the temple of the Oracle that Alexander the great consulted. We also visited the Cleopatra spring. There were a lot of men around and the girls didn't feel comfortable in the swim suits, so only a couple of the guys went in. I stood on a step and got my feet wet. At the Cleopatra spring, there was a man teaching his small son (maybe around 5 or 6 years old) how to swim. The method: tie an empty milk carton to his back and toss him in. The boy was not happy and kept running away. But he was starting to get it by the time we were leaving.
Overall a nice tour but we felt kind of bad for the donkies- when we stopped the drivers would unhook them from the carts and when we needed to get going again, the donkies put up quite a fight and made lots of noise when they were being hitched up again. Jake insists that the donkies are really happy and have a "hard work ethic" and would be sad if out of work. The rest of us beg to differ. A donkey revolution coming soon??
It was really interesting to be touring around Siwa. The area is much more basic and poorer than Alexandria. It is also very traditional. As we drove around, the only woman we saw was peaking out of the window of a small house.
After the tour our guide took us to lunch at his home. We ate dinner with his family, boys in one small house, girls in the other. This is so that his mother and sisters could come out and socialize without having to worry so much about their hijabs. Lunch was delicious. We spoke with our guide's mother and she was surprised to learn that none of the girls were engaged yet. She has 13 children and almost all of them are engaged, including her daughters who are much younger than us. After lunch the women drew with henna on some of the girls hands and then we all took a nap for a while. Afterwards, it was time to head into the desert.
We piled into to large Toyota SUV things and headed out. We stopped and our guides deflated our tires slightly so it would be easier to drive on the sand and off we went. No buildings, no roads, just miles and miles of sand. We drove over sand dunes like a roller coaster and eventually stopped on one for some sand surfing. The concept is like snowboarding, but on sand. We literally used snow boards. However, it is much different. You cant get any traction to actually turn the board, so you have to go down straight and are pretty much at the mercy of the sand. There were a couple of good wipe outs.
After the sandboarding we went swimming in a cold spring nearby. It was really strange to see this lake with a bunch of plant life around it in the middle of the desert. After swimming we visited a hot spring, but I didn't go in because it smelled like rotten eggs because of the sulfur.
We stopped at on last HUGE dune to sand board down, only we had to sit on the boards like sleds because it was too dangerous to be standing up. You would definitely break something if you fell. We hopped on the boards two by two and sledded down. It was super fast and a little scary, but really fun!! The bad part- sandboarding is really fun, but unlike snow boarding, there are no ski lifts, so you have to walk back up, which is very tiring. So we hiked back up the big dune once and went down a second time, then waited for our guides to drive the trucks down.
We drove to a camp and our guides made us dinner on a fire. Chicked and rice and vegetables. Really really delicious. The chicken was nice and tender and juicy. After dinner, we hauled into the vans again and drove out into the desert to camp for the night.
We set up camp- layed thick blankets on the sand and each of us had a small foam mat to sleep on. No tent. Just open air. It was absolutlely beautiful. We all layed back and looked at the stars. I've never seen anything like it in my life. The sky was covered. We could even see the milky way, clear as could be. We spotted satellites and shooting stars. It was amazing. We slept well for a while until it started to get really cold in the early hours of the morning. Even though I was in a sweatshirt and jeans, I woke up freezing! I ended up rolling myself in one of the blankets on the sand. We woke up and went back to the camp for breakfast and then part of the group headed back to Alexandria while the rest of us stayed for day 2.

Day 2-
We piled into the back of our guide's pick up truck and drove to the salt lake and salt flats. It was a big lake of salt- it looked like snow! We got out and walked on it and took pictures huddled together like we were standing in the artic. We found a hole in the salt leading to the water beneath and one of the guys sat in the water for a few minutes. He was floating like he was sitting in and invisible chair! Afterwards we drove to another cold spring which was much more secluded than the day before and did some more swimming. We drove to a second one after that, but it was exteremely crowded with a lot of local boys, so the girls could not go swimming, or would have to swim with our clothes on, so we decided to leave. We went and had some lunch and took another nap because it is too hot to do anything in the middle of the day.
After lunch we did a little shopping in town. I bought two scarves and a box of dates filled with chocolate. Delicious!! Siwa is famous for its dates and olives. After shopping we drove to this little hotel type place on the salt lake and went swimming in the salt lake. It was very strange. The lake was only maybe 2 feet deep all over and you couldn't go under even if you wanted too. If you just sat back, it was like you were floating on a lounge chair because the water was so salty.
A couple of us decided to swim out to this little island. Bad idea. The water was really shallow, so it was hard to swim in. You couldn't walk, because the salt on the bottom was sharp. We were pushing ourselves along with our hands for a while, but the salt on the bottom of the lake was leaving tiny cuts, like paper cuts, on our hands. We eventually made it to the island and were all quite sick of the salt, but had to swim back.
We made it back and jumped in the fresh water spring by the hotel. We watched the sunset and then had to head back into town to catch our bus. However, as we were literally driving away, the hotel workers stopped the truck and told us we had to pay 25 L.E. for swimming there (this was after they told us we had to buy something from the restaurant, which we all did). Our guide and our two Egyptian friends with us got out of the car and went aside and argued with the workers. Like usual, it was an intense discussion. Voices were raised, there were wild hand gestures. It carried on for about 10 minutes before all was settled, and everyone shook hands and we left without paying.
We made it back to town and said goodbye to our awesome guide and hopped on the night bus back to Alex. Once again over crowded, but at least the air-conditioning worked. After having had 2 nights in a row of very little sleep- we all slept on the bus. We made it home and went to bed and got up for homework the next day.