Siwa Oasis, Egypt

Monday 1st October 2007 Same Siwa desert camp
We spent an anxious day waiting for news of whether our visa into Libya would be ready in time as FNB in Mooi River had neglected to send the money transfer to the UK. We drove east to the salt lakes with the bubbling hot springs, very obviously the remains of an ancient, now desiccated sea bed.
Here in Siwa water is plentiful 40m below the surface, and either hot or cold brackish water, hence only dates and olives can grow as they can handle the salt.
Siwa has 25,000 inhabitants ruled by strict Muslem culture and strong traditions. Married women cover their whole bodies including wearing gloves and veils over their entire faces.
The Italians were in Siwa during WW2 and promised to build roads, electricity and houses for the inhabitants. But once they killed and ate one of the Siwa donkeys, the Siwa people were very sad. When the British bombed the town killing 5 locals and drove out the Italians, they realised there was a war on, and so the promises of the Italians were never met.
We spent the evening in the silence on our backs on shade-cloth in the sand studying the stars and looking for satellites. (Nev found a record 11, and I found the northern constellations which have been eluding me for many years).
One always associates oases with camels, but we did not see one, only badly treated donkeys - they beat them on their swollen rumps with planks or poles -poor things.

Sunday 30th September 2007 Siwa Desert camp
This morning we drove around Siwa town and saw the various sights. In the afternoon we went with Ahmed in his Landcruiser into the desert for which we had to get police permission. We had to go with a guide so we went with his vehicle as it was the same price. He took us to a hot spring 30Km away into the Great Sand Desert where in the 1960s the Russians were drilling for oil. They hit water at 950m instead of oil.
This water is 40deg and bubbles out from the pipe into the middle of a small pool. The water over flows, seeps into the sand and comes up, cool, 1Km away into a dam 100mX200m and 6m deep. We swam in both of these places where the water had algae and little fish.
We then were taken to the fossil sea beds where the dunes had been blown away and had exposed the hard bottom of an ancient sea bed, full of shells, snails, and mollusks. We went over a huge dune like in Namibia and up the other side to watch the sun setting over the light khaki coloured dunes. (In the Namib the dunes turned red.)

Saturday 29th September 2007 Siwa Oasis in Desert
A totally new experience this: It was breezy last night, 18deg but it was literally raining with dew this morning. No mist, no fog, but the dew was condensing on everything and running off the top of the tent.
There were small bushes around with big white snails. These supported the night life of small snakes, scorpions, lizards and mice, none of which we actually saw, but there was lots of evidence of their activities this morning.
We reluctantly left his lovely desert for the Siwa Oasis.
We saw some of the sights around Siwa. We wanted to swim, but in both pools where 'foreigners' could swim, men were bathing with soap or washing their galabiyas with Omo in the pools and no women were there at all.
There are springs all over here. Some hot, some salty and some fresh.
Because of irrigating salt water over the centuries the soil is very saline and most of the agriculture is date palm and olives. Fresh dates are as sweet and delicious as the dried ones we get in SA but the olives are HORRIBLE fresh, and have to be soaked in salt for two weeks.
Siwa Oasis is 18m below sea level and 300Km from the Med Sea.
We found a nice campsite on the edge of the town in the desert. The sand was very fine and we got stuck but after letting our tyres down to 1bar we sailed out.

Friday 28th September 2007 Snail desert
We read about Alexandria and found it had 5million people and we headed east for Al Alamein instead. We visited the WW2 war memorial and grave site. Very well kept, clean and tidy but reading the names and gravestones made me get goose-flesh and wanting to cry at the waste of life and sadness this caused.
We then went into a little village, found a secluded place between all the resorts on the Mediterranean Sea and had a lovely swim in the crystal clear, like swimming pool, water with white beaches stretching on either side, with no-one anywhere near. The whole area east of Alexandria is built up with resorts, the Egyptians' favourite holiday place. (Whereas the Russians and other tourists go to the Red Sea resorts.)
The muslems are very conservative and women cover up their whole heads, some even including their eyes. How we manage to find the unpopulated places is a mystery, but we do.
We then headed for Mersa Mertrouh where we drove around, as Dad Karg had mentioned it a lot from his war stories. It is now a resort town waiting for the influx of visitors, so is empty and full of litter, although the water in the bay is, again, like a swimming pool in clarity.
We then headed for Siwa Oasis and slept in the desert an hour from Mersa Mertrouh and enjoyed the silence of the desert.