We travelled from Alexandria to Siwa by bus. It was a full day of travel, as we left at 9am and arrived by 5.30pm. Siwa made a good impression on everyone right from the beginning. It has not been as exploited by mass tourism, and so the people here are not pushy and less likely to hassle you. 
We were met by several donkey taxis, which transported our luggage to our hotel for us. They were so cute! They looked just like little tuk-tuks from Asia, but they were pulled by donkeys! They even had little signs painted on the back.
The guys accompanying the taxis impressed the girls immensely. They were not bad looking, and they had startlingly light coloured eyes. We noticed that quite a lot of people here have eyes like this. One of the guys asked to have dinner with our group, which thrilled the ladies. He didn't end up making it on time though, so we caught up with him at his shop for some tea.
Our hotel was quite basic, but comfortable. The interior decoration was interesting to say the least. There was a badly stuffed fox hanging on top of a picture frame in the foyer. It looked pretty sad and like any one of its legs might fall off in the near future.
After we settled in, we went off to explore some ruins near the village. These ruins used to be a village of its own, and it is built up like a mountian. You can see it from anywhere in Siwa, as it dominates the skyline here in the flat desert.
We were amazed as we climbed through the little dwellings to the top. Each little section used to be a home, and it looks like it is all made of mud. At the very top, there are little tower like pieces of buildings and jagged mud walls remaining. It's like a bizarre fantasy world.
The most amazing thing was the view from the top of the little mountain of houses. You could see the Siwa Oasis in the distance, the miles of flat desert, and the little villages everywhere. We were at the top at the perfect time, as the sun was just starting to set, turning the sky a million shades of purple, pink and orange.
From our vantage point at the top, we were able to see a big group of men in white clothes praying in the direction of Mecca. It was the end of the fast for the day, so the speakers from every mosque were blaring the prayers for the day. It was amazing to hear the prayers coming from the villages as we were up on the silent hill watching the sunset.
Evening Activities
That evening we had dinner at a local restaurant, which is very popular with tourists and locals. There were at least 6 or 7 cats running around looking for food from diners. They were very eager, and would claw at your pants or stand on their back legs like a dog begging.
We were seated and were waiting to order, when a big group of Dutch tourists arrived. Apparently they had made a booking, and arrived late, and now there were only little tables available. The restaurant joined tables together for them and sorted it out quickly, but the overly insecure, bitchy tour guide found it necessary to come over to our table and say 'Thanks for stealing our table'.
After the fuss was over, we had a surprisingly great meal. They cooked really well at this restaurant, and we were all eager to come back the next night, providing the Dutch group wasn't there.
After dinner, we went up to the rooftop of our hotel, and shared a shisha together. There was a lovely tent set up on the roof, with mattresses and cushions to sit on. The perfect place for a shisha!
Cycling Siwa
The next morning, we hired bikes and went for a spin around Siwa. The bikes were in pretty bad shape, and not easy to ride at all. Some of them had the handlebars slightly out of alignment which made steering confusing. Another poor girl in our group was too short for any of the bikes, and kept falling off the one she had. You could hear us coming for miles, with the way our bikes were rattling.
We rode up to a big hill, similar in size to the one we visited the night before. There was a great view from the top over the surrounded scenery. It reminded Artur of the Alice Springs' Anzac Hill, with its nearby expanse of greenery. There were huge rocks structures in the distance, and an amazing 360 degree view of the desert.
The hill itself was a burial ground for workers and their supervisors. There were a couple of little tombs available to see, that belonged to the supervisors. They weren't that impressive after seeing the Valley of the Kings, but still they were a local attraction.
Cleopatra's Spring
Our next stop was Cleopatra's Spring, which turned out to be a kind of deep round pond, surrounded by concrete edges and steps. We were expecting something a little more natural, but it was a refreshing place to stop and have a swim. It was very deep and there was nothing to really hold on to, so you had to be able to swim constantly to enjoy the water. Otherwise you had to hang around the algae covered steps.
After our swim, a group of us headed into the trees nearby to pick dates. The palms were bursting with fruit, and there were trees everywhere. We had all developed a taste for fresh Egyptian dates, so we were keen to collect as many as we could. 
We ran around filling our pockets with the best ones we could find. Some of them were hard to find, but when you found a good bunch, you felt like you'd hit the jackpot.
After our date picking adventure, we sat down for a quick packed lunch. There were some cute little kittens begging for food, so we fed them some cheese and bread. One of them was so eager for food that it jumped on top of the bag of rolls and tried to bite through the plastic.
We were completley dry by now, so the two of us decided to jump into the oasis with our clothes on. It was fun and very cooling. We rode back to the hotel from there, making the mandatory stop at a carpet factory. Surprisingly, not one of the young backpackers in our group wanted to buy a huge magic flying carpet.
Sandboarding in the Sahara
Soon after we got back to the hotel, the two of us, and Thomas left in an old Toyota Landcruiser to go sand boarding in the desert! One of our boards looked like it was a plank of wood torn off one of our hotels. It reminded Artur of an attempt that he and his brother made to make a snowboard when they were young. They put so much effort into perfecting it, but it didn't really work. The other board they gave us was more like a snowboard, and was a lot skinnier.
When we headed out to the desert, we lowered the tires. Our driver seemed to think he was a bit of a racer, and liked to show off his speed. We were flying across the sand dunes at 100km/h. The dunes are so steep, so sometimes you can't get up them on the first go. If you're not going fast enough, you have to reverse back a long way, and then speed up really quickly as you approach the dune. Once you get to the top, the car teeters of the edge of a sharp drop. It felt like a roller coaster as we went over the edge of those dunes!
The sand dunes were just amazing to look at. Their shapes and sizes are simply unreal! Everywhere you look, you think you are looking at a postcard or a screensaver. The wind creates amazing patterns on the sand.
Soon we stopped for a break at a hot spring. This one was a bit smelly, kind of like Rotorua in New Zealand. It was amazing to see how large the green area was around this one spring. It was like a little jungle in the middle of the desert.
We didn't want to swim here, as the water was really quite hot. The drivers spent a few minutes in their daily prayers before we left. And then off we went again, speeding across the desert like maniacs.
Soon we arrived at a really steep sand dune, where we were about to become initiated into the sport of sand boarding. All the initiation really consisted of was being given the two boards and pointed in the direction of the edge of the dune.
Loren was the first person brave enough to give it a go. She had snowboarded once in her life, and figured it couldn't be too much harder. She tried the first run on the big plank of a board, and discovered that it was a lot slower than snowboarding. You have to start with you board sideways down the hill, or you'll never go anywhere. Once she got started though, she picked up some speed, and skimmed all the way to the bottom. The only problem was getting back up again. You had to climb all the way back up again with the heavy board, shoeless in the soft sand. Difficult and exhausting to say the least.
Artur followed her down the hill next, but struggled to get the plank to go anywhere. He switched for the skinnier board, but his feet were sticking out both side of the board! He did pretty well for his first time on a board, and enjoyed it immensely.
The only difficult part about riding the sandboard, was making it across the hundreds of tire tracks that criss cross over the base of the dune. As soon as you hit one of those at high speed, you do a spectacular tumble onto the sand. We all had a few of these impressive falls, and amazingly enough, the only person to finish a ride without falling, was Artur. He managed to find his way into a car track track that was running diagonally from the sand dune, and ride along its trail. Impressive!
From the top of the sand dune, we could see a huge oasis not far away from us. It was surrounded by a big section of greenery. After we had exhausted ourselves from climbing the sand dunes, we headed over to the oasis for a swim. The place was packed with Italian tourists, wearing speedoes and bikinis. This was a bit of a surprise, as most people cover up a bit in Egypt. It felt like we were in Europe, so we joined them in the water.
Soon they all left, and there was only four of us left, including our guide. We could see hundreds of tiny fish in the water, so we tried to catch them in our hands. Loren caught three at one time, which was the record for all of us.
After our swim, we headed back in our Landcruiser. We stopped along the way, so that Wahid and the drivers could break their fast. They sat together eating fresh dates and chatting.
We sat off to another side, relaxing on the sand. It was magical to be sitting in the middle of the desert at sunset, watching the bright red sun sinking lower and lower into the horizon. It was the most beautiful sun we had ever seen. It looked like something someone would paint, not what you would see in real life.
We had fun playing with our shadows on the sand, and Artur rolled all the way down a sand dune on his side. It was great to be away from the city, and the crowds of Egypt. The Sahara desert is just so beautiful.
Last Night in Siwa
When we arrived back in Siwa, we were very hungry, so we all headed out to the same great restaurant that we had been to the night before. Two girls from our group had a funny story to tell about their afternoon. One of the girls had been followed around all afternoon by one of our guides, who was the son of the hotel owner. He was about 17 and he wanted to take pictures of her with her camera. While we were picking dates he was taking heaps of pictures of her, but as soon as someone else would come nearby he'd pretend they weren't doing anything. One or two of the pictures were a bit dodgy, ie. close ups of her hips or chest.
Later on that afternoon, back at the hotel, he came to the room that she and another girl were sharing. He wanted to continue their photo session. He asked them to close the curtains and the door. He took heaps of photos, and had photos taken with each of the girls with their arms around each other. Someone came knocking on the door, and he freaked out, and hid in the bathroom. He told them to make them go away. They were sick of his photos, so they told him their friend at the door needed them, and he needed to go.
Huge group of men watching one tiny TV (on the right).
The photos themsleves were fairly innocent looking, and the girls weren't bothered too much by him, but when you think about the way this guy was acting, and the strict religion he was brought up in, in this small town, he was being pretty naughty. For him, what he was doing was equivalent to asking the girls to pose in their underwear, in our culture. Wahid was pretty angry when he heard about it, particularly because it was in the middle of Ramadan, the holy month, and touching girls is forbidden unless you are engaged to them. The girls made him promise not to get the guy in trouble, but he told his dad anyway.
After dinner, we picked up some food supplies and lots of water for our upcoming trip to the White Desert.
To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Siwa Oasis
The train ride to Alexandria was a long one. Our route took us back through Cairo, and then north to the Mediterranean Sea. We arrived in Cairo at about 9am, and then the train continued for several more hours until we reached Alexandria. Unfortunately, Loren was very sick again from food poisoning, as she had been on each train ride so far. This time it was worse, and she was exhausted by the time we reached Alexandria.
When we arrived at the hotel, Loren was given a room straight away, and everyone else went out on a tour of Alexandria. The hotel was really nice and very colonial in style, with huge rooms and staircases. We had a huge airy room with an incredible view over the Mediterranean Sea and the coast of Alexandria. The sea breeze kept the room nice and cool, and the beach looked so beautiful from above.
Artur and the rest of the tour group took taxis to the catacombs. Artur ended up in a taxi with a crazy driver who hit a child crossing the road and laughed about it. The kid didn't see him coming, and was a bit stunned when he was hit. The driver didn't even stop. He also tried to get rid of them early, not at the right destination. Great driver!
There were no pictures allowed in the catacombs unfortunately, so Loren didn't get to see this part of the tour either. The big catacombs stored above 300 people. It looks from above like a well, but you can walk down and around this well via a staircase.
The restaurant was pretty fancy, and it was one of those places where they serve you things before you even order them. When we arrived, they opened a 1.5 L bottle of water and gave it to us, along with 8 plates of various salads. We told them we'd prefer to see the menu first before having our drinks decided for us, and we'd rather not pay for salads that we are not going to eat. We were avoiding anything uncooked in Egypt, especially salads washed in their dirty water.
Finally they stopped pulling money scamming tricks on us, and just let us read the menus and choose our food. We ended up having a fantastic meal of freshly grilled fish. It was pretty good value for seafood compared to Europe.
The Library was very modern looking in terms of architecture. The first part that we saw was a huge wall covered in symbols. Some were hieroglyphs, greek symbols etc. Beneath the symbols was a pond with fountains. This part seemed fairly conservative, but when we came around to the front of the Library we were surprised. There was a big spherical dome covered in Neon lights, and the other sloped pyramid like surface of the library was also covered in lights. There was another big fountain in front of this side as well. Very modern, not what we expected at all.
After seeing the library, we went for a walk along the Esplanade by the water. To do this, we had to cross several heavy lanes of traffic. Traffic does not move slowly here, or give way to pedestrians, so it was pretty scary. We all made it across safely though.
At the other side, there was a sidewalk that followed the water. It was beautiful to see all the lights of the city as they curved along the coast. We soon noticed that the water was not as beautiful as we had imagined. The shoreline looked like a rubbish dump. There were piles of trash covering the rocks and the sand by the water, and lots more floating in the water. We were very glad we didn't go swimming that day. It's amazing how ugly a country can make the Mediterraean Sea by not looking after it.
Artur decided to walk along the stone wall by the pathway, like a little school boy. He looked like on too with his little backpack, and his thumbs tucked behind the straps. Soon we arrived back in town again, and we were all feeling pretty hungry. We couldn't find any nice restaurants, so we decided to just get take away. We were about to get Egyptian take away kebab rolls, but after everyone's struggle with food posioning, we decided to get McDonalds take away instead.
We thought we were going to meet up and eat together, but Wahid was too lazy to wait for us, so we went to eat by the water. As we sat by the water, and looked down at the rubbish, we realised that most people proabably throw their rubbish down there after they eat. Not nice.
We were leaving for our trip to the desert the next day, so we stocked up on some snacks and wandered back to our beautiful hotel.
