Heading to Siwa Oasis

Its cooler tonight. We arrive at Mawkaf Mohram Beh station. It’s dark here. Not because it’s 9 pm but because there’s currently a power outage at the station.  The only lights  here are the ones from the buses and taxis which are barely enough to illuminate the parking lot.  Our group of nine Couchsurfers somehow arrange a meeting spot through text messages.

Our bus arrives and we quickly jump on to evade the rash of mosquitoes. The bus departs at 10:05PM and within minutes the air conditioning is on full blast and the Quran is blasting so loud that it’s actually over powering my iPod. Excellent!

Every so often the bus swerves followed quickly by an air horn from hell. This is going to be one long 8 hour bus ride.

An hour and forty minutes into the journey and the bus comes to a screeching halt in a small dusty parking lot. The door opens and a few of us shuffle off to the restrooms. A man stands outside the entrance of the bathroom requesting 1 EGP ($0.17 USD) to enter. I walk past him and decide I’ll pay him on the way out. The stench of urine was unreal in this place. I held my breath as long as I could. On my way out I witness a man washing his feet in the sink that I’m supposed to wash my hands in and I flip the doorman two 1 pound coins as I exit in disgust.

Were off again and before we know it we enter a police checkpoint. Two armed, plain clothed officers hop on the bus and all of the lights turn on. They’re searching for suspicious bags, contraband and more. They stop in their tracks when they see a fellow Couchsurfers’ bags. They spend about 10 minutes questioning him and tearing through his bags. The officer takes one last glance at his ID and exits the bus. Off to Siwa we go!

It’s a two lane road smack dab in the middle of the desert and due to high winds were being blown from the left to the right. I wake up as a gust of wind hits the bus that almost sends us flying off of the road.

6:00am rolls around and we arrive in Siwa, just 30 miles east of the border of Libya. We take a short walk to our hotel (Cleopatra hotel). We check in and get situated by 7:15 and set up a meeting time of 9:00am for breakfast before we start our day.

Three donkeys pull up with carts dragging along behind them. This is not only our ride for the day but many Siwans use donkeys as their everyday transportation. There are very few cars here, take a look at the streets and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

With one snap of a stick on the ass, we’re off to explore all that Siwa has to offer and there’s not too much!

Siwa oasis is great for one day but I wouldn’t recommend that you stay any longer than that. There are a few old ruin sights mountain of the dead 15 EGP ($2.64 USD) and the oracle temple 25 EGP ($4.40 USD) respectively. We stopped by a local spring which was loaded with children wrestling in the sand, throwing each other in, and trying just about anything to beat the heat.

We head back to our hotel for a shower and a much needed nap before we get picked up by our donkeys again at 6:30PM. This evening well visit a spring where we will do some swimming. Liz isn’t feeling too well so she stays behind in order to try to sleep off her stomach ache and get well rested for our desert trip tomorrow afternoon.

[mappress]