Egypte / Egypt 2002

July 15, 2002 – Alexandria – Siwa Oasis

Finally, it is funny to spend the night in a bus station. From time to time, there is bus coming and the whole station starts living with the relatives coming in to see the passengers, the taxi drivers to search some customers and after a while everything calms down and the station falls asleep until the next movement.

At 5am, it is a new day with a lot of departure and work resumes, the crowd is bigger and bigger and the queue at the booth grows longer.

At 8:30, the bus to Siwa starts its engine and we are ready for a more than 9 hours trip. In the bus we have only an American movie Rutger Hauer and Mimi Rogers: Deadlock (1991) but I didn’t see the beginning I was sleeping.

We stop at Marsa Matruh at 1:30pm to take some fuel and change one wheel as it was completely torn by a metal piece under the bus. Hopefully there are two wheels at this place!!!!

In two days, I spent more than 32 hours in a bus or in transit at the station but now we are here in Siwa and I will take a shower and have a good bed (Youssef Hotel).

At the hotel, I meet a Japanese guy who was in the bus with me, Masato from Tokyo who only have one week as holidays to spend in Egypt!!! That’s pretty short!!!

We ask for the prices of the desert trips organized by the hotel. We want to see the springs around Siwa and definitely see the sand dunes at sunrise and sunset. Prices change a lot at the Youssef Hotel, so we decide to change and to follow Jorge advice to go to the Palm Trees Hotel and take the tour from here. So we meet there Salah the manager and he is so great and helpful. He describes the trip and offers to pick us up at our hotel. So we take the 50 EGP trip that includes the sunrise, the two springs (cold and hot ones) and the sunset in the late afternoon. We will come back often at the Palm trees hotel, and stay there a long time.

Outside, we are smoothly accosted by a young boy aged 13. His name is Youssef and he proposes us to see the sunset from Fatnas Island with his carretta (a donkey with a cart). It is at 6Km from downtown so we accept. In the caretta, we meet Khaled his brother of 6. He is very funny and charming.

Khaled

At Fatnas Island, there is a spring where we can swim but as it is the sunset we will be wet if we dive.

The spot to observe the sunset is well located with a wonderful view on the lake with a huge rock at the rear. The lake is not deep as it is summer time but in the winter it is a huge one with a lot of water for the oasis. Around Siwa there at least 3 big lakes.