Yabba Dabba Doo

Siwa Oasis
Originally uploaded by wapstar.

We arrived in Siwa just after midnight, but the town still seemed to be awake. Men were out walking around, enjoying a sheesha, or riding their donkeys. Even kids were out playing in the dirt streets. Walking from the bus stop to our hotel, we felt as if we were walking around a movie set. Siwa is 550km west of Cairo near the Libyan border, which also happens to be the middle of nowhere. It is surrounded by huge sand dunes, salt lakes, and of course natural springs that make it an oasis, allowing the growth of thousands of date palms and olive trees.

Siwa remained isolated from the rest of the country, and the world, until a paved road was built in the 1980s, linking Siwa with the Mediterranean coast. Siwans still speak their own language & have a unique culture different to that of the rest of Egypt. set up on a hill in the centre of town are the remains of the ancient fortress, Shali. Built in the 13th century, it was the home to hundreds of people, and few, if any, outsiders were admitted. Very few that entred ever returned. But the fortress was built with kershef, large chunks of salt mixed with rock and plastered in clay. In 1926, it rained for 3 days and most of the fortress was destroyed. As we passed by in the middle of the night, the ruins were lit up like a cheesy amusement park ride. Most of the buildings are still made of mud bricks, giving the town a Bedrock feel.

At our hotel, we had a cold shower (it was still about 35C out) and went to sleep until about noon. For lunch we enjoyed the best lemon, sugar, banana and cinnamon pancake ever, then spent a few hours walking around the small town. At 3:00 pm we left on an overnight desert safari. We drove through Lake Zeitun, a huge saltwater lake, which a little bit of water and a lot of salt. It was about an inch thick on the surface where we walked. We then stopped in Az-Zeitun, an abandonded mud-brick village. Apparently these guys had the same contractors as the people of Shali. From there we stopped at Abu Shuruf, a gorgeous little freshwater spring in the middle of the desert. Surrounded by palm trees, the spring is a refreshingly cool swimming hole. The water is a gorgeous turquoise blue, and so clear we could see straight to the bottom. We relaxed here for a bit, swimming and enjoying the quiet. We were told of a hot springs across the road but when we got there it looked like a runoff pool from the neighboring factory, not cool...exactly

On our way out to the sand dunes, we passed through Ain Safi, home to around 30 Bedouin families. What they do out here, I don't know. After letting some air out of our tires, we drove around the desert, stopping every now and then to take photos. We climbed to the top of a huge rock structure in the sand, where the views of Siwa and the oasis are stunning. It looks like a mirage popping out of the desert. Walking around, we found hundreds of sea shells, left over from hundreds of thousands of years ago. As we roared over and through the sand dunes, we felt as if we could have been on Tatooine from Star Wars.

As we sped along, we noticed a 'thump thump' sound coming from the rear of the open jeep. The driver stopped, we all hopped out, and sure enough, we had a flat tire. In the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere in Egypt. He indicated in broken English that it was because the sand is so hot (it was at least 40C out). Unfortunately, the jeep was in desert sand. To make a long story short, we spent the next 45 minutes trying to change the tire. First the driver had to dig the sand out around the wheel. This wasn't too successful, since the sand just slid right back in. He then had to try to use the jack to prop the jeep up, which was nearly impossible with the sand. Eventually all of us (us and a couple from Hong Kong) had to lift up the side of the jeep so the driver could wedge the tire on. We couldn't lift the jeep high enough to get the full size spare on, so we had to make do with a smaller one.

We finally made it to our camp for the night, which resembled a patchwork circus tent. Some guys from town were putting up our 'hotel' for the night, a tent made from various blanket scraps haphazardly put together. The floor was of course just the sand. But they did have small mats and we had brought our sleeping bags. We got what little gear we had out of the jeep, then climbed a giant sand dune to watch the sunset. As far as sunsets go, it wasn't too spectacular, but the desert and surroundings were beautiful. While we waited for our driver to come back with our dinner (he had left us to go back to town to get our guide and our food), we fought off mosquitos and finally built a fire in the sand. We had an excellent dinner of traditional Bedouin food (Siwans descend from various Bedouin tribes) and sat around the fire chatting to our guide. It was really interesting speaking to him about growing up in Siwa (a.k.a. BFE) and how he will always live there. We also tried some Siwan tea. It usually involves 3 rounds of tea, the first being tea as strong as you can possibly make it, the second is made with mint which tastes like toothpaste mixed in water and well we didn't make it to the third round but apparently it is supposed to be like the first only weaker. When our exhaustion crept up on us some time late in the night, we all crawled into the tent and went to bed.