I’ve Been Through the Desert on a Bus With No Name

The road to Siwa
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By Dan

If you’ve had your fill of crowds, noise, pollution, and chaos, what do you do? You get away from it all. What’s one way to do that? Put yourself in the middle of the desert, 300 km south of the coast, 600 km west of the Nile, 50 km east of the Libyan border, and just around the corner from the middle of nowhere. Of course, to get there, it requires some quality bus time. So, we spent some time hanging out at Alexandria’s New Bus Terminal on Sunday the 18^th, waiting for our ride to Siwa to depart. This is real Egypt at its finest, with ladies in burkas, men in their long robes, hawkers, hustlers, prayers, and players. What a scene.

Our Travelling Companion
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As our bus rolled out of town, we had a handful of other gringos on the bus, and a collection of other travelers that included women in the full burka, guys who look like they just stepped out of an FBI wanted poster, and plenty of people who could have been riding BART to downtown SF. Egypt is quite a mix. Of course, as far as we could tell, nobody spoke more than a few words of English, so the plan was all a little unclear. We knew, though, that the bus’s last stop was Siwa, the oasis in the far western desert about which we had heard so much. For the first 150 km west of Alexandria, the coast was lined about eight rows deep with condos and apartments, many of which looked to be partially completed – but whether that was completion of construction, or disintegration, I’m not sure. Apparently, folks from Cairo, the rest of Egypt, and in fact the whole Middle East come to Egypt’s Mediterranean coast during the summer to escape the heat.

Donkey cart through Siwa village
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For most of our eight plus hours on the bus, the driver had a tape playing of a guy speaking in Arabic. The speaker seemed to get pretty excited sometimes, and we desperately wanted to know what the subject was. Was he a popular Egyptian comedian, doing monologues? (There wasn’t a lot of laughing on the bus.) Was the driver a loyal follower of President Mubarak, listening to old speeches? (I don’t think he’s quite that popular these days.) Was he an imam preaching about the evils of the west? (We didn’t get too many dirty looks, but folks on the bus weren’t the friendliest.) We’ll never know for sure.

sandboarding
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Unlike the taxi that took Christina and Grayson along this road to El Alamein, our bus made rapid progress on the straight, flat, well-paved road. We paused for a break at a truck stop out in the middle of nowhere, giving passengers a chance to pee, pray, and drink tea. We just soaked in the scenery. Wow, is this place different. Back on the bus, and we took a longer stop in Marsa Matrouh, which is the last significant town on the coast as you head west. Again, it was all a bit unclear as to whether we were paused for 5 minutes or 2 hours, as the bus driver and his co-pilot kept up a steady stream of “Siwasiwasiwasiwa. . . “ the whole time, to drum up more passengers. About 1:30, we rolled out, heading south and west into the desert. This was flat, flat, flat. As far as you could see in any direction, it was nothing but flat. Brown dirt, mixed with sand, with an occasional pile of rocks. A few times, we would stop at crossroads, where a few guys who were apparently oil rig workers would hop off and start walking off towards the horizon. What a world.

Cleopatra's bath (hot springs)
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The place we made our afternoon pit stop was high on the list of most Godforsaken places I’ve seen in my life, despite the friendly sign that welcomed us to “Uncle Sayed’s Cofy and Ammo Shoop”. Uncle Sayed’s sons, who ran the place, were in fact quite friendly. The kids showed some impressive judgment and decided to skip the offered omelettes. (Egypt has not allowed us to shine as parents, when it comes to feeding the kids healthy meals – on this day, as on several others thus far during our time in Egypt, we’ve had potato chips, cookies, and sodas for breakfast and/or lunch.) Christina recognized the absurdity of standing in line to use the outhouse, which scored a 1.5 on our 1 to 10 scale of toilet rankings, when there was nothing but open space as far as the eye could see in all directions. So, she went behind the tiny mosque to do her business, and reported upon her return that she definitely was not the first to have had that inspiration.

Siwa Shali Hotel
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Suddenly, out of nowhere, we started seeing a few smatterings of green, and before long, we were surrounded by date palms, sugar cane, and other greenery. This is why oases were a big deal to desert travelers in the old days, and still are today. It was remarkable to me how anybody could ever have found this place, because the surrounding country is so inhospitable for so far. But, apparently it has been well known for millennia. They’ve found evidence of human habitation here in Siwa dating from the Neolithic age. When the Persians invaded Egypt about 500 BC, they sent an army of 50,000 men to destroy the Oracle of Siwa, who was well-known and perceived as a big threat. That army was swallowed up in a sandstorm, and never heard from again. (Too bad they didn’t take the West Delta bus service, as we did.) Alexander the Great made the trip through the desert as well, and had better luck, as the Oracle declared him a son of the god Amun, which gave Alexander justification to crown himself as pharaoh. Supposedly, Cleopatra came out here, too, and enjoyed the hot springs.

Tea in the Oasis
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It was immediately apparent that this was a very cool place, living up to its reputation. (Our Lonely Planet guidebook says, “Siwa is simply one of the most picturesque and idyllic places in Egypt.” Bingo.) We rolled through town for a few blocks, past one-story, mud/adobe buildings, donkeys, produce sellers, and the usual collection of shops you find in a small town. When we got off the bus, we were greeted by a crowd of teenagers offering their donkey carts – that’s the main form of transportation for hire in this town. We and our stuff were too much for one donkey, so we loaded the kids in one and Christina and me in the other, and set off for our hotel, which we thought to be a few km out of town. It turned out to be quite a bit farther than that, and when our 45 minute ride ended, the negotiated price of less than $4 per cart seemed like quite a steal.

kids on camels (again)
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Along the way, we had chatted in very limited English with the kids driving our carts, waved to kids out in the streets, watched dozens of donkey carts go by with men driving and one or more women in full burka (meaning totally covered, without even a slit for eyes) trot by. Between settlements, there were more date palm orchards, other fields, and more buildings in various states of repair. Apparently there is so little rain here, that people are comfortable building things out of mud. They still talk of the Rains of ’26 (1926, that is) that badly damaged the mud fortress that had been built in the 1300s. The people here are primarily Berber, rather than ethnic Arabs, who speak their own language and are very independent. There continues to be a wide range of looks, ranging from almost black African to green eyed red heads. Perhaps most unexpected on our donkey ride was the sight of three enormous rocky outcroppings, sort of like mesas, that rise out of the desert and oasis. They were beautifully lit with well-positioned floodlights, making them look absolutely spectacular in the growing darkness. What made them so surprising to see were that they well thought out and beautiful. This is a place where people leave the lights off in their offices and stores all day to save electricity – and here was something done that used lots of electricity and was done purely for cosmetic purposes. Weird. Beautiful.

Christina and I often are amazed that people in the travel business in developing countries almost get it right, but just don’t quite pull it off. The place we’re staying falls into that category. It looks lovely from a distance, with a pool winding its way between the rooms, very nice architecture that fits in with the environment just perfectly, and friendly staff. But, then, when you look closely, there are little details that get missed, that remind you that you aren’t in Kansas anymore. We are enjoying ourselves a great deal, and it’s a nice break from the travels, so our complaints are very minor. Our first night, there were about 15 Italians on a tour, in addition to us, in the 90 room complex. Our second night, it was just us. (That can’t be good for cash flow.) It was a little spooky eating dinner all by ourselves, and being hovered over by a swarm of staff. Perhaps in honor of us, we had delicious fried chicken, of all things. Not sure whether that’s a Siwa delicacy, or whether the chef wanted to try something from his American cookbook. Since it was followed with peach Jello for dessert, I’m pretty sure it was American Night at the Siwa Shali Resort Hotel. . . . Christina checked out the Healthy Club [sic], but reported that it looked less than healthy.

Excursions into the desert are a big part of the Siwa experience, and we had arranged to go out with the guy who is going to be with us for a couple of nights when we leave Siwa. What a success! Yehya (pronounced as though you were excited and saying, “Oh, yehya!) started us out with some quality four-wheeling in the dunes right outside of town. Big, steep dunes had us feeling like we were on a great rollercoaster, with a Berber dude at the controls. Some of the 400 foot dunes we went down were so steep that we essentially slid down them, with the wheels locked up. Christina and I guessed that they must be 60 degree inclines. Definitely double black diamond runs at Tahoe.

Then, in what may have been the biggest hit of the trip so far, Yehya pulled out the snowboard, and we did some sandboarding down the dunes. He encouraged us merely to sit on the board and slide down, but, being cool Californians used to shredding on gnarly mountains of water and snow (well, OK, I haven’t even tried to surf in 20 years, and none of us have ever snowboarded, but. . .), we said in our best Spicoli imitations, “No way, dude, we’re going to shred some rad and gnarly dunes.” Not sure Yehya, whose English is very limited, caught all of that, or appreciated the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” references, but, shred we did . . . .

Next stop on the desert excursion, after more four-wheeling, was a fascinating area of ancient coral and fossils from when this whole area was at the bottom of the sea. We were picking up fossilized sand dollars, scallop shells, and fish skeletons, along with what looked like petrified wood chunks. (Recall that there is about 300 km of sand between us and the ocean.) I couldn’t get over that I was walking across ancient coral, collecting shells, in the middle of the desert. From there, we went to a little mini-oasis, about 10 km from the main Siwa oasis, where a hot spring bubbles up and apparently Cleopatra did some bathing. We enjoyed a fun soak in the water, then had tea that Yehya had brewed on a fire that he had built. Amazing. Finally, we enjoyed the sunset over the desert while the kids had races down giant dunes. Over the course of 30 minutes or so, the sky turned all sorts of different colors. It was really wonderful. On our way back, Grayson said that this might have been the most fun thing that we had done on the entire trip. That’s the sort of thing that one likes to hear.

Having done a lot of running around in Turkey and our first few days in Egypt, we were all in serious need of some R&R, the youngest member of our traveling team in particular. So, we have taken full advantage of the very sleepy existence here in Siwa, and slowed things down considerably. We had booked 3 nights at Siwa Shali, but with some revisions in travel plans, decided to stay an extra night. Our initial plan was to move to a different place in town, but the prospect of actually packing up and moving was too much to contemplate, so we elected to stay where we were. The kids slept relatively late, played cards, swung in hammocks, and read books. Christina and I did the same, plus stared out at the desert, talked parenting issues, and contemplated our navels. Yes, we do need a vacation from our vacation sometimes! Hopefully this will prepare us for our further trip across the desert, and some heavy duty antiquities in Luxor.