How to See the Sahara, Pt. 1

After our placement test on Tuesday (which left us in pain), we found ourselves milling about the AUC gardens wondering what to do with ourselves for the next four days before our advising meeting. Somehow the topic of travel came up. Sarah's roommate was planning a trip to Sharm el-Sheik, a resort town on the Red Sea. We could go there. Jacob, who had spent the last week backpacking around southern Egypt (Aswan and Luxor), suggested we avoid touristy towns and airfare and go to Dahab, Jordan by ferry, and leave tonight. Unfortunately, that would exclude Hafsa, whose green card status made traveling a bit more difficult. She had refugee status in the United States (she's Kashmiri), but an Indian passport, and had to wait for some official approval before she went out of the country. We started looking for possibilities within Egypt, and that's when someone mentioned Siwa.

Siwa is an oasis town (the red dot on the map) about 50 km from the (mined!) Libyan border. Wikipedia puts it as being settled since the 10th millennium BC, and its famed oracle was a favorite of Alexander the Great. While it's rumored that he's buried there, no evidence of it exists. Today, Siwa is home to about 22,000 people, all of whom are ethnic Berbers. They speak their own language, Siwi, but begin learning Arabic and English as soon as they enter the madrasas. (NB: While many people think a madrasa is a purely religious or Islamic teaching center, madrasa simply means "school." It's the noun form of the verb "to study," darasa.)

We looked at some of the pictures of Siwa and the descriptions of our travel books. Sitting in natural hot springs watching the sun set over the Sahara desert? We could do that. Quickly, logistics were sketched out: leave Wednesday morning by bus, return Friday night. As for the days in the middle? We'd fill them in somehow. Maybe take a day trip out to one of the more remote oases, or explore the city. We didn't have much of a plan, but it did involve bringing one native speaker of Arabic along. Hammad, our friend from school back home, is Palestinian, and would prove to be invaluable on the trip.

Wednesday came and we all managed to make it to the Cairo bus station by 7:30. Those with bigger backpacks warily turned them over to a nice man who put them in the storage compartment under the bus, and prepared to never see them again. It took us about an hour to get out of the city with the morning traffic, and provided an interesting view of the city at morning. Most of us tried to sleep, but for some reason I wasn't tired, so I watched out the window for awhile and then turned to my book (pleasure reading!), American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Highly recommended.

Then the movie started. I swear to you, I have never heard sound quality so bad in my life. It didn't help that we all were seated directly under the speakers for the entire back half of the bus. The audio cracked, buzzed, hummed and whined at a volume unnecessary for any time of the day, let alone morning. As you can see from the picture, sleeping was done with the utmost of effort. I rocked the iPod, and tried to stick to culturally relevant selections. That means stuff like Habibi Ya Nour El Ein by Egyptian superstar Amr Diab, and Ah Wah Nos by the sharookh Nancy Ajram. It quickly disintegrated to tenuously tied songs like Insha'Allah by Goodie Mob or Ya Habibi Yalla by the Gypsy Kings, and by the time we hit the desert, it was The Rolling Stones and Lil' Kim.

Our plan was to take this first bus out to Marsa Matrouh, and then take the bus to Siwa. We stopped in the middle of the desert for prayers at a roadside mosque, and it became suddenly apparent how much of nothing there was. To the left, nothing. North, nothing. Just flat, hot sand. We passed kilometer after kilometer of completely anonymous land. Once in awhile, the bus would slam to a stop at no discernible landmark. A wave of panic would wash over our faces in the back row: surely this was the time the bus would break down in the middle of the Sahara, leaving us at the mercy of the sun and the passing trucks. But instead the bus was letting people off. Where they were going was anyone's guess.

As we wound our way west, we eventually got close enough to the Mediterranean coast to see some glimpses of water. Brilliant, blue and flat, the shoreline was absolutely empty. Every now and again we would pass groups of abandoned and windowless homes. They stood, copses of corpses, suggesting a better time.

Jacob and I commented on the lack of development of the coastal areas. Our general opinion was that in the United States this would be a resort town, full of hotels and beaches and shops. For a country that relies so heavily on tourism, Egypt needs to diversify. But it's more than that; tourism is not a steady source of national revenue, especially in the Middle East. A string of bombings in Cairo or Alexandria could cripple the economy. Here, where foreign investment has been discouraged or prevented since the days of the Suez crisis, indigenous industries suffer. There's the potential for Egypt to be the next Sweden, where a bit of external venture capital and a heavy focus on a specific emergent technology transformed their economy. But that can't happen without the government loosening its control over capital flow, and that's definitely not going to happen soon. It's too late, anyway, for the tumbling ghost towns of the coast.

We just barely made it onto the bus at Marsa Matrouh, a smaller Egyptian city. Men wore more traditional garb, and most women were wearing the niqaab instead of the hijab like in Cairo (hijab is just a head scarf; niqaab is a head scarf/veil combination leaving only the eyes present). Hammad and I watched the sun sink on the ride to Siwa, looking for the triangle signs that market the mine fields that were supposedly just over the horizon. We never saw any. We arrived at dusk.

Hotel Yousef had been recommended to us by a kid in our program at AUC who had been there before. He said it was cheap, and he was right. It was about $3 USD per night, and wasn't that dirty. The girls had our own bathroom. There were flies, but no mosquitoes or cockroaches, and that's about all you can ask for. Our first adventure was to the roof, where we caught some amazing views of Siwa and Shali (the ancient town in ruins) at sunset.

The town was small, and had an old-world feel to it. While there were some cars, the main mode of transportation was by a donkey cart.

We went out to find somewhere to eat, and eventually stumbled across a restaurant that seated us around a campfire in a palm tree grove. We were the only people in the place, ordered lots of food and tea, and came out only about $4 poorer. The exchange rate of about 5.5 Egyptian pounds (LE) to the dollar is incredible, especially in the less touristy areas that don't charge Western-style prices. That night we sat on the roof of our hotel and talked until midnight, making tenuous plans to hire a guide for the next day and venture into the Sahara.

In the morning, we split up; the girls went to run errands (internet cafe, bank, pharmacy) and the boys went to price shop for a safari tour. We met back up at the mosque at 10am, to hear that the boys had found a guy willing to take us to the hot and cold springs at Bir Wahed, about 20 km outside Siwa, and then a camp at night for a fire and dinner. We would be back by 9am on Friday, time enough to catch the 10am bus back to Marsa Matrouh or Alexandria. The cost? 80 pounds each. It was an amazing deal. Because we were going closer to the Libyan border, military permits were required, and this meant we had to wait until the afternoon to leave. We checked out of Hotel Yousef, and decided to get some food.

We had an amazing breakfast across the street from our hotel. For about $2 each we got about six dishes, all eaten with fresh baked bread, and mint tea. While in Cairo we're not supposed to eat most vegetables and dairy products, in Siwa we indulged. Fresh vegetables washed with clean spring water and cheese from local goats is fine. My favorite was cream and honey, which when scooped up with a piece of warm pita is delicious.

With time to kill before our 2pm departure for the desert, we decided to climb the old fortress that rises above the old town of Shali. Wandering out of the town proper and into a more residential area, we were trying to find the way up to the summit when we attracted the attention of a group of kids playing in the street. Hammad asked them how to get to the top, and they said they would take us.

I never knew how many kids there were all together, but at any given time there were about 7 or so clambering about on rocks showing us secret paths, caves, and the best way to the top. None of them spoke English, but Hammad was able to talk to the oldest, Mohammad, who gave his age as 12, 15 or 10, depending upon who asked. I gave them some chocolate wafers I had in my backpack, Jacob gave them gum, and we all handed them 25 or 50 piaster (like cents) notes for their services. We made it to the top, and the view was incredible. My favorite quote of that adventure was from Hafsa, as we were walking through the narrow streets lined with clay houses, followed by a swarm of children: "This is so NatGeo." (We have some great pictures of us with the kids, but they're on Hammad's camera, who hasn't uploaded them yet.)

Mohammad wanted to take us to his house, and although we didn't have much time left before our tour, we couldn't say no. Siwi homes are made of a clay that is not water-resistant; every 30 years or so they are rebuilt. Inside his house, it was dark and cool. We took our shoes off, and Mohammad gave us pillows to sit on. We found out that four families lived there, with at least 15 children wandering in and out of the main room at any given time. They had a TV, and were watching Arab music videos. Also, there was a goat.

The girls, who had stayed inside during our mountaintop adventure, sat with us, and we tried to converse in broken Arabic. It's not too polite for men to talk to girls, so the three of us made an attempt. Eventually, Hammad just started talking to them, and translated for us. The eldest girl, probably about 13, asked where we were from. America, he told them. Have you heard of it? Her response, as translated: "Of course I have. Everyone has. And why do you speak Arabic? You learn that in school? Here in Siwa, we learn English and Arabic in our schools, but you only learn English." We didn't really have a response for that. It's amazing to see how informed and knowledgable even the children are here. I had never heard of Egypt until the 5th grade; I had never heard of Siwa until yesterday.

It would have been interesting to talk to them more, as they were all really bright and probably had some good insight into more traditional Egyptian culture, but we had to go. On our way out, we played an impromptu game of soccer on the street with about 20 little kids. Chaos, but fun. We said goodbye to our guide Mohammad, who asked to meet us the next day in the morning when we returned from the desert to show us Siwa. We agreed on a meeting time and place, but as it turns out, we never made it.

We went to pick up some snacks: chips, fresh fruit and Siwa bottled water for the desert. Hammad got into a lot of conversations with friendly shopkeepers, one of whom tried to give us the food for free. Again, Hammad translated their conversation, as it was over all of our heads. Basically, while there is a strong negative perception of the US government in the region, the man wanted to stress to us (and for Hammad to take back to America) that he sees Americans as individuals, and has found them to be warm and friendly. He told Hammad that it was his duty as an American Muslim to spread the corollary: that all Muslims are not defined by the actions of a few. This was the same opinion that Ali had given us earlier in the week at lunch before the Pyramid adventure, and it seems to be the general sentiment we've been given so far.

After that, it was time to hit the desert. We met up with our driver, Ali, at the Palm Trees Hotel, and climbed into the back of an old Toyota truck with two bench seats and a roof. We picked up an Egyptian couple, probably from Cairo, as well, and set out west. As we bumped and jostled over the small sand dunes and previous tire tracks, Ali's friend in the front seat handed us a guest book, filled with inscriptions of travelers past. All raved about the experience: beautiful stars, great water, delicious food. Some comments were in English, some in Arabic, some in German, some in French. For some reason, all the comments in French said the same thing: "Ali est un chauffeur fou." A crazy driver. It couldn't be that bad, right?

We hit our first stop, where we were encouraged to take pictures. Like I said at the Pyramids, pictures really can't do it justice. We snapped like crazy, but it's hard to capture the color and the emptiness that the Sahara really means. I wrote my name in the sand. Ali drew some pictures. We moved on.

Our next stop was a warm springs in the middle of the desert that smelt faintly of sulphur. We spent a long time there, as other travelers from other safari outfits joined us. While it was pretty remote, and most people there were western, us girls swam with long tshirts and shorts covering our bathing suits. No need to be too scandalous. The water was aerated through a pipe in the middle, which gave, as Ali called it, a great massage. We tried to teach Hafsa how to float on her back, which just ended up with us looking like we were trying to baptise her. The entire time, I kept thinking: we are in the middle of the Sahara. We are almost in Libya. And we are in a hot spring almost as warm as any hot tub. It was surreal.

Eventually we were getting too warm, and it was time to go to the cold springs. We all got out, toweled off, and headed back to the truck.
I had one foot inside when Ali stopped me.

"Do you want to ride on the roof?"

And this is where we learned what chauffeur fou really meant.