Siwa Paradise

... Cleopatra's Spring - whether Cleopatra ever swum here - who knows, but we certainly did. It's an idyllic and peaceful location, when not infested by a bunch of Aussies and Kiwis doing bombs :)<br><br>After we had cooled off we retreated to Tanta Waa cafe again for fresh mango and pomegranate juice and lunch.<br><br>Next adventure was into the desert again. Picked up at 3pm in 4WDs ti head for the Great Sand Sea on the edge of ...

... decided our stay in the Egypt airport was traumatic enough, and we treated ourselves to a nice midnight coffee. At our gate, there was an ant infestation and apparently nobody had every been on a place before. They started boarding the airpcraft from the back, as usual. When they called out "Rows 24 and higher now board", the entire room went crazy because they thought the plane did not have enough seats for everyone. The staff calmed everybody down and we boarded the plane to KHARTOUM.

... a little skin.<br><br>After the salt flats, we hopped in the back of Waleed's pickup truck and picked up huge bales of alfalfa for the goats. We then got to his farm prepared to catch a rooster. First we fed the goats, there was a cute little one and Brittany asked its name. The goat didn't have a name so Brittany asked if it could be named after her. Waleed agreed, but said that Brittany was a male, and all male goats are killed for food. We were upset, but were happy to ...

... it, either for advice or to destroy it. We also took an overnight trip in one of the Sand Seas of the Libyan Desert. Our trip included visits to cold and hot springs and some sand boarding at sunset. Our Siwan Bedouin guide, Ahmed, took us from destination to destination at 100 kilometres per hour over dunes. There were no roads, no rules ...

... others. He had us each recite some words in Arabic that were basically beautiful marraige vows and wished us a long life with a lot of happiness. We opened out hands and found that he had slipped us a silver scarab pendant with red wings which he said was for "luck". We thanked him profusely for his kindness before we walked back to our hotel, reflecting on what a fantastic day it had been. Will add pictures SOON!

From Cairo we took a comfortable train to Alexandria, Egypt's 2nd largest city, which sits right on the Mediterranean. We only stopped for one night: nice corniche along the water, checked out Fort Qaitbey and then their famous library. That's right, we traveled halfway around the world to see a library. Nice library though. Lotta books. Then we were off to Siwa Oasis, 4 hrs down the coast and then another 4 hours into the desert. It is one of the most remote towns in Egypt ...

(Well, sorry for the delay in posting... it seems that somehow someone/something managed to damage the main internet cabling out of the Middle East, deep under the Mediterranean and internet has been out. Anyhow, I'm doing some back-posting now ;-) As planned took a 4x4 out into the desert today to go visit some hot springs and do some dune surfing. We used a regular snow board on the dunes and it ...