Adrere Amellal Ecolodge Siwa

... guy who was coming with us - about 23 phone calls later we took off to another checkpoint and finally found our man.<br><br>The road to Siwa is mostly non existant, there is the remnants of a sealed road but in many cases it is smoother just to drive on the sand, our drivers have disconcerting habit of swerving onto the sand at 120kph when things get a bit too bumpy, and even at that speed we are berated by the army guy for ...

... to our gate, so we returned to our camp in the corner. Seven men in suits came over and surrounded us in the corner. They were trying to make us leave our spot, and we were not going to give it up easily. <br><br>The conversation with the owner of the airport went like this:<br>Man: Do you understand English?<br>Us: Yes<br>Man: (raised tone) You cannot sleep on the ground here, this is not the street, its an airport<br>Us: We are not sleeping<br>Man: (furious) You must leave ...

... would be a while before they could get another bus to the location, and klaus and Sarah had a connection in less than an hour. We debated what to do, and decided to see if we could find a taxi to the next station. Sarah stood on the road, klaus for some mysterious walked away from her, and then within 2 minutes a Bedouin man stopped and offered her a free ride. Klaus came running from behind the bus, and they both hopped in. Luckily they made it to the station in time for ...

... afternoon, we had booked a jeep safari out to the Great Sand Sea. I had wanted to sea huge sand dunes and it definitely did not disappoint. We visited a plateau of fossilised remains, which were mostly fish and shells, and then went sand boarding on the huge dunes. This was heaps of fun but more difficult than it looks. After-wards we topped off the day with swims in both hot and cold springs in the middle of the desert.

... dozens of rock cut tombs. We went inside 4 of the tombs and the first was the best by far which we later complained to Mohamed about and explained to him the theory of saving the best til last. The first tomb was the best decorated but the paintings were a bit off and you could tell that they were from a different time compared to the great periods of Ancient Egypt. After the tombs Mohamed convinced us to climb to the top of the mountain even though he had ...

... we started the walk back to the bus. We should have been in Siwa at this stage watching the sunset from the ruins of Shali and so some people decided that they didn't want to miss out on seeing sunset so they stayed and watched while the rest of us walked back. I got to the point where I couldn't hold it an longer so I decided I had to find a rock so I could go to the toilet. This was made more difficult by the fact that some of the ...

... our group leader, Hany. We got back to town and went for an awesome dinner before retiring back to our hotel where Hany had a surprise for Heath. We were lead into a Bedoin tent on the roof of the hotel where there were pillows and two tables with candles lit all over them. Hany then started up some music on his laptop, pulled out some cake and Bedoin tea, and got us all some Sheesha. We sat on the roof ...

... I had breaks. After about an hour of riding and stopping at a few sites, we reached Cleopatra's Bath. This is one of the springs and there is a great little café with hammocks next to it. Since the bikes had the hardest seats, we decided to stop for an extended period of time. The owner of the café was in the process of starting an organic farm and building an adobe house for himself and his wife. We made it a daily thing to visit this café, but we decided never ...

... across the desert, charged straight up sharp dunes before plummeting down the other side, launched in 90 degree turns that had 2 of the wheels just brushing the top of the sand, all with us on a couple bench seats in the covered box. Although we also had a great time, the look of glee on Abdul's face would have made it difficult for a spectator to know who was actually paying to do this. Turns out him and his Chevy have a bit of a reputation - both for wild rides and ...

5 hours train ride to Alexandria.. 20 minute walk to the Mediteranean Sea. Quick snack. 1 hour walk around the city. 12 hour bus ride to Siwa. ARRIVAL So Andres and I spent a few days in Siwa.. it was amazing. So beuatiful and isolated.. we went camping in the desert, road bicycles, and ate delicious food...