2-12-10
I spent last night dancing around the bonfire with a Siwan band until the wee hours of the morning; liberated from doubt, discomfort and displacement.
I spent the morning at a young man’s house in Siwa sitting on his floor listening to the ins and outs of Siwan culture. We heard about Siwan traditions, strict gender roles, history and the current effects of increasing tourism on a town/village or 9 families and 25,000 people. Once the guys in our group left the Siwan women came out and did homemade henna for us and gave us the chance to ask questions about what it means to be a woman in their culture and engaged at age 8.
I spent the afternoon at Nustar Café eating couscous, eggplant, hummus, and aish (bread). When we finished there was no bill brought out to us, but rather an honor system so to speak where we were encouraged to leave what we thought the total should be. It definitely made us all release our hesitance to tip a few extra pounds. Later I rode my bike around Siwa with another girl, had tea with a shopkeeper, tried on traditional Siwan wedding attire, and bought some bread baskets handmade by the women in Siwa. We all met back up at 5pm and biked into the desert to watch the sunset and swim/FLOAT in Siwa’s great salt lake fed entirely by natural springs. We biked back and stopped at a fresh water spring where we were able to rinse off the white salt that completely covered our bodies as it dried. Despite how good it actually felt to rinse off I can guarantee that if it hadn’t been pitch black outside and I had seen all that I was actually swimming with I wouldn’t even have considered it! We biked back in utter darkness and faith through sand pits, rocks, and self created paths as the desert stars shined for our only light. Our bus driver, who is half Ethiopian and half Egyptian cooked fuul (beans) and aish for dinner outside by the fire when we got back to the “hotel.” We ate at about 10pm and as soon as we finished the band began.
2-13-10
The Desert Rose Hotel proved to be true to its name despite not having any electricity. Ali drove me and 5 others on our desert safari. Words, pictures, and stories cannot even begin to do justice to the natural beauty we witnessed and authentic Siwan culture we touched on the dunes of the Sahara. After we let some air out of the tires we drove about an hour into the desert and finally stopped on the top of a steep dune to sandboard-aka strapping yourself to a snowboard and riding down the dune. The trouble comes with climbing back up! We did sand sledding as well with two people sitting on the board. After sand had entered every unknown and unwanted place we could imagine we piled back into the jeeps and drove to a freezing fresh water pond. We didn’t last very long there but proceeded to drive around the dune to a natural hot spring complete with orange dying sulfur. We drove further and stopped on the top of some dunes to get out and watch the sunset and take pictures. Our drivers made a small fire and made us Siwan tea (from Libya) and passed out fresh dates stuffed with almonds grown in Siwa. Finally, we drove another 30 minutes in the dark of the desert to our “camp.” Our camp consisted of huge colorfully printed canvas tents, open bonfire pits with floor seating around each one, and a “snack shack” to purchase tea pots and cups to make over the fire. Dinner was served to us in our tent on two long wooden tables (always very low to the ground because everyone sits on the floor) set with a feast of rice, chicken, vegetable soup, tomato and cucumber salad followed by tea. After barely surviving arctic temperatures during the night we drove back to the Desert Rose to have breakfast and scrape whatever sand we could from our bodies. We spent 30 minutes in Siwa before our final departure getting snacks for the road (dates!) and last minute souvenirs. Despite the 24 hours we spent on the bus in travel to and from Siwa it was my favorite part of Egypt thus far.
Lets recap:
Untouched Siwan culture, dates!, biking through the desert, floating in natural salty springs, dancing with a Siwan band around a bonfire into the morning, desert safari, sandboarding/sledding, tea, stars, sunsets, SIWA! Arguably the best weekend of my life- oh and I turned 21 somewhere in there :)