Last weekend I stood where Alexander the Great Declared himself a God. You?

Hello World.

Sorry for not writing sooner, but I’ve been a bit sick since returning from Siwa; nothing life threatening, just really annoying and distracting. Every time I think I’m over it, it comes back with a vengeance. Rest assured though, my stomach will triumph in the end.

So, as promised, let me fill y’all (I kinda miss saying that word) in on my adventures last weekend. After school, Adam, David, and I set of for Turkomen bus station. Our taxi driver was being a bit greedy, and after some aggressive negotiation by all parties involved, as well as some hot pretzels to break the tension, we arrived at Turkomen only slightly less poor. We got on a bus headed to Iskandria (Alexandria for you English speaking folks), which was quite expensive at a whopping 24LE. Once in Iskandria we immediately got of and got on another bus to Marsa Matruh (another costal city, except without everything that makes Iskandria worth visiting). The bus ride to Matruh was less comfortable, as the entire time we had a very loud and not so good tape of Qu’ranic recitations blaring right above us.

Once we arrived in Matruh, we had a taxi take us to a hotel that, according to Lonely Planet (a book which is quickly becoming my bible over here) was clean and comfortable. Once we arrived, the owner showed us to what would be our room. The beds were literally hard as boards (actually, they were boards, with thin piece of foam on top) and bathrooms were in serious need of a good scrubbing. He even refused to negotiate the price (15LE a person); probably because it was midnight and he knew we weren’t going anywhere. Alas, we reluctantly gave in, dropped our bags, and headed out to find some food. We eventually found this place that looked pretty good. Adam and I, having not quite rid ourselves of our America perspectives, ordered a ½ kilo of kafta and kebab. What arrived 10 minutes later was literally a mountain of meat. Needless to say, we went to bed on a full stomach.

In the morning, we caught the bus to Siwa. Except for Adam waking me up to catch the random camel in the desert, that ride consisted mostly of sleep for me. Once we arrived in Siwa, we hired some kids and their donkey cart to take us to their hotel. You might be asking yourself, donkey cart? Let me ‘splain. A road to Siwa didn’t exist until the late 1980s, so the town is still fairly culturally isolated. The locals still speak a Berber dialect at their first language, and the only cars in town are the 4x4s used to haul tourist into the desert. Local transportation comes in two forms: bicycles and donkey-carts, which are almost all operated by children under the age of 10. Once we dropped our stuff in our hotel, which was much cleaner, more comfortable, and cheaper than the night before. We crossed the street for lunch while the guy who ran the hotel took off to find us some bikes. Once we got the bikes, we peddled outside of town to check out the ruins of the temple dedicated to Amun-Zues, circa 350 B.C., and then the Temple of the Oracle, where Alexander the Great declared himself a god. Both were quite impressive, and since words won’t do them justice I will attempt to upload a picture album soon.

Later, we stopped by Cleopatra’s Well, a natural spring just outside of town where both Alexander and Herodotus were supposed to have swam, and took a dip. It was pretty nice. We peddled back into town and climbed the Shalli, the ancient city built of salt blocks and mud that was effectively destroyed in 1926 by three days of torrential rain (you can’t really blame them for not planning for that, the city’s in the middle of the desert). We caught the sunset from the Shalli, and then wondered around town and found something to eat. After dinner, we biked over the Mountain of the Dead, which is full of ancient tombs. For the fifteen minutes we were there it looked pretty cool, but then we were chased off by the night watchman. (In hindsight, we should have just bribed him)

The next morning we set of to find someone to take us on a Safari into the desert. After wondering around, we found this kid, younger than us and running a store, who said he would hook us up. Once our driver got there, we headed off into the desert, known as the Great Sand Sea. I must say, the views were pretty righteous. We drove about 25 km out into the desert, and then the driver stopped to let us sandboard (think snowboarding down sand dunes) and jump off the dunes. Some were over 60 meters tall. After the dunes, we drove to a cold spring, (more like a lake) that just popped out of no-where in the desert. We swam around for a bit and then head to a hot-spring about ½ km away. It wasn’t as nice as the cold-spring, especially since it was surrounded by a party of old Italians who all resembled my freshman geometry teacher Mrs. Allen. We stopped for a bit there, but then quickly left for a private camp.

The camp we stayed at over the night consisted of a reed-walled hut and a private spring, plus a personal cook. We just chilled and listed to the cook, Osman, complain about all the European girls wanting to have sex with him when they stayed there.* It was pretty funny. He whipped up a pretty tasty dinner, and then we crashed out in the desert around a fire. I must say, it was very Lawrence of Arabia.

*Siwans are very conservative, which is what I presume leads to a common misunderstanding that Osman was complaining about. Apparently, a lot of tourists think that it’s okay to whip out the bikini when they’re swimming at a private spring. To Siwans, this is interpreted as a sexual advance, and hence Osman’s complaints. Goes to show you the importance of cultural sensitivity. Check out Adam’s descriptions of the Siwan women to see how they dress, and then you might understand.

The next morning, we head back to Marsa Matruh by bus and then Cairo by Micro-bus, which was interesting. All in all, a worth-while weekend.

In other news, I’m going to try and make the blog a little less narcissistic. I’ll be posting links to English language Arab newspapers as well as links to Egyptian and Arab bloggers. Feel free to check them out, catch a different perspective and all that jazz. Some are quite interesting.