I bought a copy of “Up” on the streets of Alexandria the other day for $1.90. It was originally pirated in Russia, and thus all the English writing in the movie had been replaced with Russian. Furthermore, it was subtitled in Arabic.
That has nothing to do with the following post, but thought I’d share it while the thought was still warm.

Last weekend we visited the Siwa oasis in western Egypt, about 60 km from the Libyan border. We were only mildly worried about contracting the plague. We were more worried about, you know, dying of dehydration and exposure and discomfort in THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. Click the links I've thrown in here to see photos and videos from this trip.

We left on Friday at 6:00 in the morning. In the hour before sleep snuck up and stole me from myself, I watched with wide eyes as we passed vile-smelling refineries, vast pools of shallow water which would eventually evaporate and leave salt behind to be collected, and out in “Alexandria West,” we drove past mile after mile after mile of resorts. Unfinished resorts. Beautiful, stately buildings emulating completion, ringed by boundary-defining walls that blocked any view of the ocean, standing empty under the unrelenting sun. We drove past complexes for a solid hour, before the resorts turned to abandoned desert. This empty, barren land was also blocked from the road by a retaining wall, but for a good reason: this was El Alamein, site of a battle during WWII, and reportedly still pockmarked with mines.


We drove along the coast for two or three hours until we reached Marsa Matrouh – a lovely resort city that I’ll come back to later. At Matrouh the road turned southwest, and we drove for another three hours through the starkest land I’ve ever seen. Think Nebraska, but with sand. And instead of buffalo: This.

Sleep stole itself from me once again as condensation dripped into our boxed breakfasts inside our air-conditioned tube. When I woke, the difference in landscape was dramatic: desert had turned to groves of palm trees, and buildings the color of sand hid between these groves. We drove over a channel of water dug from one of the natural springs. It was noon, and no Siwan in their right mind was out voluntarily during that time of the day.

We pulled into our hotel: a simple double-ring of low buildings forming the shape of an eye. Next door was an empty, immaculate Olympic sports complex, locked, dark, waiting for Egypt to host the world games. There’s something a bit heart-wrenching about this basketball court.

These men in front of the hotel dressed in local fashion greeted us with plates of dates and glasses of hibiscus juice. We looked around suspiciously, not wanting to be rude, but confused at the elaborate welcome. Granted, we were visiting during the off season. (See the “no Siwan in their right mind” comment above. No one visits this desert oasis in June. Er, except for a gaggle of Americans.) We were told to discover our rooms and get our swimsuits – we were going on a safari. (Insert confusion. Safari? Swimsuits?)

I always though safaris required animals. But 28 of us hopped in 5 sturdy jeeps and tore off through the desert, leaving five sets of tracks marching up and down the dunes. My driver seemed amused that his jeep of six gawking kids shrieked when he launched off particularly precipitous drop-offs. We were somewhat afraid that we were living our last moments of life.


The desert is beautiful. And a half-hour into this excursion, we came to what Erica appropriately called a “black hole in the desert.” The first thought that came to my mind was, I’ll admit, straight out of the Lion King: A watering hole! We pulled up to this button of life and were told that we had an hour to swim. To swim! In the desert! The other women on the trip and I looked around trepidatiously – we had to put our swimsuits *on*. Our guides pointed to a 4.5-foot fence made of interwoven palm fronds. So, hopping from foot to foot to keep the sand from scalding our soles, we bared our butts to the Sahara. And swam in the sweetest desert water with minnows that nibbled our moles.

We drove next to the bottom of the ocean. Well, at one point in history it was the bottom of the ocean, and seashells, crustaceans and coral is baked into the desert floor to prove it. From there, we stopped at some deserted dunes and sand-boarded in the amazing sun.

The sun disappeared under 28 pairs of watchful eyes as we perched on top of a melting sand dune, and our drivers spread a blanket behind the shadows of jeeps and made tea.

We then had dinner in a Bedouin (or, as our itinerary said, “Bedwin”) camp. Water has never tasted so good.

Saturday, we were busy from sunup to well past sundown. Breakfast early in the morning, then we were on the bus and off to the edge of town where we climbed all over jebel al-mout, or “Mountain of the Dead.” So named for honeycombed tombs that pockmark its face, and the hand of death that slithered down our spines along with rivers of sweat, as the sun climbed higher in the desert sky. Here's a video from the top.

From the jebel we headed back into town to crawl across the melting face of Shali, which is Siwi for “city.” It was literally the old city of Siwa, built entirely within mud-brick walls, and built up as the population expanded. The walls were to protect it from invasions of nomadic peoples in the surrounding desert. Ironically, these protective walls also lead to the demise of the very city it encompassed: every 50 to 70 years in Siwa, it rains. And when it rained in 1926, the walls – made of this mud-brick solution baked harder than brick - melted from its own saline content and turned Shali into Mom’s last Halloween pumpkin.

From Shali we headed back to the fringes of the city, along a winding, amazingly narrow dirt road that passed several natural springs now contained in concrete pools. The area was lush – for the desert. Dust-covered palm trees created dense foliage. We turned a corner and parked in front of 3ayn Kleopatra. You Arabic speakers out there might read that as “Cleopatra’s eye.” I learned this day that “3ayn” also means “spring.” We were face-to-face with Cleopatra’s spring.
At the time I didn’t catch much information on the spring, for my understanding of the tour guide went something like this: “[dialect] [dialect] [dialect] in [dialect] [dialect] Kleopatra’s spring [dialect]…”

Though we hadn’t been told to bring swimsuits or towels, the heat of the morning boosted our convictions that clothes dry quickly. One by one we jumped in with varying amounts of clothes on, as Egyptian men and boys watched us in amusement and waited for their turn.

From 3ayn Kleopatra we drove back into town and had lunch in a lovely, shady restaurant off a dirt road. Side note: In our entire time in Siwa, we saw about four women on the streets. Three of them were covered head to toe, with screens over their eyes. Siwa is known for its separation of genders – and has a somewhat hushed history of sanctioned homosexuality. At any rate, the restaurant sat us on the floor around four long tables and – they must have gotten word the Americans were coming –served us pizza and French fries.

After lunch we were informed of the rest of our day’s itinerary. Whereas the original schedule promised a “free afternoon,” we were somewhat dismayed to learn we’d be doing more sightseeing. (What a conundrum, huh?) Several of my classmates returned to the hotel regardless, to keep the afternoon heat at bay and slog through the mountain of homework we’d been given for the “long” weekend. The other ¾ of us piled back on the bus and headed to Amun Temple, or roughly, Egypt’s equivalent of Delphi. (Classics majors, feel free to leave your angry corrections in the “comments” section below. I welcome them.) Alexander the Great visited Siwa’s oracle in (year) to determine if he was indeed the son of gods. I think he got the answer he was looking for. And check this out. This is what we westerners were taught represents Egypt - and here they are, written on the wall!


After that brief, intense sweat session we drove into the desert. By this point we were excited for another promised spring to swim in. I won’t speak for my roommates, but after our incredible past two experiences swimming in natural springs, this third was slightly disappointing. The water was mildly saline and slime-filled, as is to be expected. But we weren’t expecting there to be a small tea tent set up next to this pool-like structure, and for several men to be staffing it, making tea, and overseeing the swimmers. Some of my female classmates and I walked a dirt road to a bend at which we hoped desperately no one would see our bared butts. We changed, and tried to ignore the mule poop concentrated in this particular bend we chose. My classmates devised a marvelously Egyptian slant to the American traditional pool game Marco Polo. We call it: Ibn Batuta. (Those of you who have used Al-Kitaab book 2, you'll know why we chose that reference.)

Example:

Tom: Ibn!

Class: Batuta!

Tom: Ibn!

Class: Batuta!

Tom: Ibn!

Class: Batuta!

Tom: Dammit, you guys are diving, aren’t you? I hate you…Ibn!

Egyptian men watching us: ???!

(On a side note, the U.S.-Brazil game is on in the lobby right now. U.S. is up by two – what on earth??! And a commercial for KFC just aired. I’ll repeat…..wtf??!)

When we drove from this spring in the desert to a “traditional Siwan house” in the city, I was amazed to watch my wonderful classmates, despite dehydration, sleep deprivation and ensuing exhaustion, wait patiently as another lecture was given to us in Egyptian Arabic. We ended the day with a brief excursion into the small town marketplace, where shop owners marveled at the American tourists dumb enough to visit Siwa in June. I was utterly impressed when one of my classmates bartered beautifully with a shop owner in Egyptian Arabic. I wound up paying a hefty price for my [noun], which I won’t describe because it’s going to be given to a certain reader of this blog. ;)

That night during an outdoor dinner at the hotel, we were treated to a traditional Siwi dance by about a dozen men who worked at the hotel. It was at this point that we saw the vestiges of Siwa’s longstanding (though “no longer”) acceptance of homosexuality. The Siwi men danced around our large circle, pulling – not women, but MEN – into their circle to dance. (Women joined later, but for that brief time, we were delighted to, for once, NOT be put on the spot!) My classmates are such good sports.


This brings us at last to Sunday, our last day of this intense weekend trip. We were up, fed, packed and out of the hotel by 9. On the road, back through the desert, we arrived in Marsa Matrouh (link) by 12:30. We were then given free reign of a hotel and its stretch of beach for about five hours. Our theory: the program expects us to work tremendously hard in class five days a week, and for an equal number of hours every night. And once in a great while, they sanction play time to even it out. I felt guilty. But the salty water, sea shells, crabs, starfish (THOSE were awkward to find with my toes!) and volleyball made for an excellent “free afternoon” at last.


On another side note: We have seen several locals slip face masks on when in the presence of Americans, for fear of swine flu. Honestly, I’d say they’re more likely to get the plague at this point.