The Siwan Oracle and Cleopatra's Bath

The next morning, I wanted to take in some of the sites outside of town, most of which were clustered around the village of Aghurmi, five kilometers to the east of Siwa. For someone more used to the bitter cold of Brooklyn, it was way too hot to walk; and unlike the previous day, I didn't have the luxury of waiting until the late afternoon, as I had to catch the 8:00 bus back to Cairo. I would have to find some other means of transportation.

There are no traditional taxis in Siwa, or rather, there are only traditional taxis in Siwa: four-seater carts pulled by donkeys. If I had both money and a heart, I would buy every donkey in Egypt and set them all free - I would be like Moses to these poor creatures. While I couldn't afford to lead an exodus, I could at least resolve not to sit behind one of the brutalized beasts. I rented a bicycle for the day instead: a fixed-pedal, Chinese-made "victory" brand model that would have felt right at home in Williamsburg. For $2, it was a solid little ride.

The modern village of Aghurmi lies at the foot of a 35-foot high acropolis which was the location of one of the oasis' earliest fortified settlements. Inside the acropolis walls is the Temple of Amun, the home of the powerful Siwan Oracle. The oracle figures prominently in the region's ancient history. Herodotus relates the story of the Persian King Cambyses II, who in 525 B.C. sent an army of 50,000 men to capture Siwa and destroy the temple after the oracle refused to legitimize his rule of Egypt. The soldiers marched into the desert and were seen again - though a team of Italian archaeologists believe that a recently discovered cache of bones may be the King's army.

Alexander the Great, the most famous of the oracle's many visitors, traveled here in 331 BC hoping for confirmation of his divinity as a son of Amun, whom the Greeks equated with Zeus. I would have thought that this qualified as a "if you have to ask..." situation, but he evidently thought the detour was worthwhile. While Alexander never divulged exactly what he was told, we can assume that it was good news. Soon after, Alexander's mints began producing coins depicting him with ram's horns, the symbol of Amun.

Like the ruins of Troy in western Turkey, the temple is a lot more interesting for its associations than it is for its remains, which have suffered badly over the last 2500 years and have not been helped over the last ten by amateurish preservation work. Still, I liked the idea of walking where we know Alexander the Great once walked. I bought my ticket and climbed the same stairs that he and so many others had once ascended. From the ticket office behind me, I could hear the attendant and his buddies snickering while they watched pornography in their booth. Reverence for the oracle does not appear to be what it once was.

From Aghurmi, I rode to another Temple of Amun. Nothing remains except a loan section of wall and a few large stone blocks which have been defaced by grafitti. Fortunately, the wall is out of reach, because it remains in good condition. I could still just make out the original blue paint of the bas relief.

I still hadn't swam at any of the oasis' springs, and if it was going to happen, it was going to happen at the nearby called "Cleopatra's Pool," only a short ride from Amun's Temple. The spring was already choked with children (which I loathe), and I used them as an excuse to stay out of the water. I'll have to save the oasis swimming for Bahariyya.

Instead, I had a tea and chatted with the cafe owner whose name was Islam. He was appalled that I was studying FusHa and thought it was a colossal waste of time when I could be focusing on a language people actually spoke, like Ameyya. He had learned English by watching movies, listening to music, and chatting with English speakers like me. He believed that only by doing the same would I ever learn Arabic. His English was very good, and I also heard him speak German and Italian while I was there, so I was inclined to believe him.

He did admit that he never learned anything from one group of people: the Australians. He challenged me to find anyone in all of Egypt ("just one!") who could understand them. "We just nod and we smile when they talk at us," he says, "it is not English!" I sympathized with this point of view and asked him for his thoughts on the New Zealand accent. He'd never heard of the place. "They say 'iggs' when they mean 'eggs!'" I volunteered. Islam was astonished at such a people.

I rode my bike back into town, but still had hours before the bus left and nothing to do. Siwa was still deep in its Siesta and I couldn't even loiter in a cafe, so I sat in the shade of a wall and read my book. I was joined by a young man who was definitely after money and would probably force me to go somewhere else. Still, maybe this was the kind of chance to practice my Ameyya that Islam was talking about. I learned that his name was Ahmed and that he spoke almost no English. He started to ask me a series of bizarre questions:

"How much is half-a-kilo of bananas in America?"

"How big is your family?"

"What is your profession?"

I couldn't believe how helpful this was! I would never again tell a professor that I would never use a phrase like "Tomatoes cost more in Siwa than in Cairo, but olive oil costs less here in Siwa." We were covering familiar vocabulary in a useful way. I barely noticed when the conversation took a more sinister turn:

"Does a lawyer make lots of money? How much money do you make?

"How much does your mobile phone cost?"

"Please tell me what you have in your bag."

"How much money do you have with you now? Can I have it? I want you to give me your money now."

Lesson over. I had already been robbed enough by Egyptian language instructors in Cairo, I wasn't going to let it happen to me in Siwa too. I relocated to the bus station where I struck up a conversation with a Hungarian pensioner. He had spent most of his life in Germany, but now traveled nine months out of the year. He summed up his experience in Egypt like this: "I was here thirty-five years ago, and since then nothing has changed. It is still all shit!" He then catalogued Egypt's ills, which were many and grave. At the end, he did say that Easter Island is a very pleasant place. "Not as bad as you might think!"

I had found a bus that terminated in Cairo, so I could relax and watch the film without stressing about catching a connection in Alex. It was an American film called "Hard Justice." It was terrible. At the first break, the Hungarian pensioner asks "was that the Tarantino? It was very bad. Much worse than people say!" I was starting to like this guy.

The resthouse, called "Bir Nous" ("Halfway well"), was really in the middle of nowhere. The flat, featureless earth spread to the horizon in every direction. I hadn't seen stars like this in years. I was moved to buy a bag of Cheetos and some guava juice. While I ate, a cute little dog that barely looked rabid started begging me for food, so I gave him a Cheeto. He walked around it, smelled it, but finally gave up and walked away. I couldn't believe it, even a starving Egyptian dog in the middle of the desert wouldn't eat a Cheeto! This might do more to change my diet than all the good advice I've ever received.

Walking to Fantasy Island

I woke up late in the afternoon with a plan to walk to Fatnis Gezeera, which translates as "Fantasy Island." This was an ambitious name for what in reality is a short peninsula poking into a shrinking brine lake. The walk isn't any more than 6km and is well marked - at least if you can read Arabic. Learning the Arabic alphabet before traveling to Egypt isn't a bad idea, actually. It's not so difficult and is very handy in situations just like this. Of course, knowledge is its own reward: I was tickled with myself when I discovered that I could read the Arabic script for "Fanta" on a bottle of orange soda. I had to show Ms. Chadha, even though she didn't need a label to recognize a Fanta and even if she did, the English word was clearly written on the opposite side. You take baby steps when learning Arabic.

In town, the late-afternoon sun washed out what little color could be seen under the thick yellow dust that coated absolutely everything. I'd hoped for clearer skies in Siwa, but there was just enough of a breeze to kick up a haze, though nothing like what I have grown used to in Cairo. As I walked further from the town, I was startled to see how green the oasis really was - it was especially brilliant closer to the lake (called Birket Siwa) where the water kept the dust down.

At the isthmus leading to Fatnis Gezeera, water bubbles out of a spring fifteen meters deep and collects in a tiled pool before being distributed via a handful of small irrigation canals to the rest of the island. This is the first of the beautiful, refreshing oasis baths in which I didn't swim. Even if you're like me and you skip the swimming (and spend the next week trying to figure out why), the combination of water and shade makes this an ideal place to stop and rest for a while. Some clever entrepreneur had recognized this and was boiling a kettle of mint tea over a small fire of palm leaves.

I was looking for a lazy way to finish out the afternoon and the island didn't disappoint. The breeze had died over Birket Siwa leaving the water's surface so completely still that it flawlessly mirrored the mesas on the far end of the lake. I once spent three days in Essaouira learning to recognize the best places to watch sunsets and the bank of the oasis was showing all the signs. I planted myself in one of the better chairs, ordered the first of many sugary mint teas, and pulled out a book. It was good that I had claimed a seat, because over the next hour, the island began to fill with fellow sunset enthusiasts. I can respect a culture that takes time off for these things.

The haze over the Great Sand Sea blotted out the sun even before it had set over the horizon. It was getting dark quickly and the goddamn mosquitoes don't wait long. I walked back beside fences made of palm fronds which separated individual orchards from the road. Behind them I could hear children laughing and playing, but more than that, I could hear a lot of singing. Sound carries a long way in the dry desert air, and it was eery how many people I could hear but how few I could see. As it grew darker, it became easy to imagine myself in some kind of "Children of the Palms" scenario. I don't know if it was this or my innate paranoia that made me refuse every offer of a lift on the way back into town. One boy on a bike stopped, looked at me with some concern, and asked me if I needed a ride. I said that I didn't and he kept on his way. Thirty minutes later, he passed me from the other direction and again asked if I needed a ride. When I finally convinced him that I didn't, he shook his head and wished me a good evening and a safe trip. Looking back, I realize that it may actually have been a gesture born out of a real desire to be helpful. It was nice to be out of Cairo.

Siwa after sunset has nothing in common with Siwa in the afternoon. The market souq had come to life such that you probably couldn't hail a donkey-taxi unless you knew someone. The cafes were completely full with Siwan men and their teas, coffees and sheeshas. You might see people smoking sheeshas in other parts of North Africa, but in Egypt, they live with them. All of the tourists and expats congregate at a place called at Abdou's. I went there too, eventually, but the first night I went to a much quieter place just off the main square called Alexander. I don't think I made the wrong choice.

When I eat alone at a restaurant, I normally like to order a few drinks. This is simply because drinking makes everything better. Other than a few spa hotels outside of town, Siwa is dry, so I was going to have to forego alcohol for a sweet-lemonade sugar rush. This wasn't as disappointing as it might have been, because the juice in Egypt is too good for words (even though I foresee a post where I try to describe it anyway). For dinner, I ordered the shish tawooq, which is a chicken, tomato, onion, and lemon kebab marinated in yogurt and spices. At Alexander, they served it with warm bread, hummus, a chickpea and tomato salad, and some sort of spicy yogurt-based sauce. It was fantastic. I enjoyed it in the kind of way that usually means that karma will force intestinal humiliation on me to put things back on an even keel.

I've always imagined myself to be a visual person, but I'm starting to think I travel as much for the food as the sights. If only there were some way to share the tastes.

Arrival in Siwa

On the way down from the acropolis, I met a Siwan woman wearing her traditional costume. Before I could practice my Siwan "Hello! Good Morning!" with her, she lowered her head, ducked against a wall and didn't move again until I had moved further down the path. I guess I was terrifying. I'd have loved to take a picture, but besides whatever psychological damage I surely would have caused, I understand that it's taboo to photograph the Siwans. The men might grant a request, but you shouldn't even ask the women.

It's a shame, because the traditional costumes are incredible: embroidered shawls, brilliantly patterned veils and scarfs, elaborate silver jewelry. It's very cool, so long as you can put out of your head the fact that the purpose of some of these articles, however beautiful, is to remove the wearer from public life. Like Christmas lights strung over barbed wire, it's a nasty barrier no matter how you do to beautify it. That's not an entirely fair metaphor, but the lack of women in the oasis is one of the first things you notice. Actually, the absence of women recurs in other contexts here as well: the oasis is a place that has historically been tolerant of male homosexual relationships, allegedly sanctioning such marriages through the early 1940s. Increased exposure to "mainland" Egypt has driven this aspect of the culture underground, if not ended it completely. My guidebook informs me that this is another topic I shouldn't raise.

I tried to find some photos of the villagers on the web (taken by travelers less scrupulous than me) but the taboo appears to be pretty effective. The only shots I could find were of tourists trying on Siwan costumes and they tended to look like jackasses. While in the oasis, I did find a man who carried a selection of literature related to Siwan culture, including some with photocopied pictures. My favorite was an English-language pamphlet that had the unintentionally provocative title "To Go Under Her Gowns" and the undeniably perverse subtitle of "To Get Inside a Woman of Siwa." The French version didn't suggest anything nearly so racy, so I think maybe something was gained in translation. I didn't buy it because I would have embarrassed myself with all my snickering at the register, just like when I bought a biography of WWI Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch only because it was titled "Foch the Man."

There were plenty of hotels in Siwa, and if they weren't full when I arrived, they wouldn't be before the evening bus arrived, so I had time for a lazy breakfast. I dropped by the "East-West Restaurant" located just off the market square. The name alludes to the clan violence that has plagued Siwan society since the Middle Ages, when a group of Berber and Bedouin families (the "Easterners" or "The Thirty") migrated to the oasis and became neighbors of the original Berbers (the "Westerners" or "The Forty Ancestors"). I didn't let talk of factional violence put me off my breakfast though. The East West Restaurant makes an excellent omelette, which, together with fresh squeezed orange juice and a generous-sized Turkish coffee, costs less than $4.00.

While I ate, I conducted some amateur forensic genomics prompted by the number of cases of albinism I had seen in my first three hours in town. By my math, "Thirty" Easterners plus the Westerners' "Forty Ancestors" equals seventy founding Siwans. That's a pretty tight genetic bottleneck for the present population of 25,000 to squeeze through and it doesn't look like they succeeded without consequences. Imagine having Albinism in the Sahara Desert! It didn't occur to me until after I'd left the oasis that maybe this was the reason why the only sunblock available at the local pharmacy was SPF 95.

The Hotel Yousef is the cheapest place in town, but is is also the best located if you don't mind the noise from the market square. I took a bed, or rather, I took three because Yousef only had a triple room available. To get any kind of room for less than I'd pay for a burrito in Brooklyn is still a wonder, so I wasn't going to complain. Have I mentioned that Egypt is very affordable? I think I have. I'll probably keep mentioning it. I've never been so obsessed with money as I am now that I feel like I have so much of it.

It was early afternoon at this point and the heat was really starting to sap my energy. They take proper siestas in Siwa, and most shops had already closed their doors for the afternoon. I even had a hard time finding someone to sell me a bottle of water and had to buy one from a cafe that couldn't close because a bright-red Englishman had fallen asleep in the sun and the staff couldn't figure out what to do with him. By this point, the effects of twelve hours on a bus were starting to take their toll, so putting off any further exploring, I headed back to the hotel, collapsed on the nearest of my beds, and slept soundly through the hottest part of the day.

Bussing it from Cairo to Siwa

The next northbound train with available seats didn't leave until 8:00 p.m. This meant that I would miss the last bus to Siwa and would have to spend the night in Alexandria. I hadn't arranged a place to stay, so I'd wind up knocking on pension doors that had already been bolted shut for the night. I also knew that I'd feel guilty enough about waking someone that I'd probably take the first place with a bed, no matter how nasty. I knew of one place I could stay, but I wasn't sure I was ready to go back to Hossein after our history together. My plan was already coming apart.

Since I had five hours before my train and nothing to lose, I decided to put the motto that "Cairo always offers alternatives" to the test.* I would find a bus instead. I searched for, found, and waited in line at what I believe might have been the West Delta Bus Lines ticket office, but it could have just as easily been anything else. Whatever it was, the line hadn't budged after forty minutes of waiting, so I moved on. I walked a mile or so to a bus depot near the Nile hoping that I could maybe bribe a driver to let me slip on one of the group-package charter buses, but again, nothing. Things looked grim. I started my walk back when a random old man pointed at a dilapidated bus and said "al Iksanderia." I couldn't believe my luck. I tipped the guy (who may not have even been talking to me) the equivalent of the full fare and boarded. This was definitely no first-class train compartment: it was cramped, smelly and blared unnecessarily loud Egyptian music, but I was on my way! Even if I didn't make the connection to Siwa, I could at least find a bed in Alexandria before everything locked up and then try to catch the first bus the next morning.

I was feeling very good. My travel plans had almost collapsed even before I escaped Cairo, yet here I was speeding down the desert road past silhouettes of palm trees under purple skies and a crescent moon. I was going to make my connection! Not even the mildly anti-American variety show televised on the bus could bring me down (sample lyrics: Amreekee, Amreeka! Amreekookoo, koo koo!).

The bus terminated at El-Mogaf Gedida (the "New Terminal"), which despite its optimistic name, is nothing more than an unpaved parking lot on the outskirts of the Moharrem Bey district of Alexandria. With a half-hour to spare, I took my seat on the overnight bus to Siwa.** I'd normally be concerned about the noxious fumes that had begun to fill the idling bus, but they were keeping the mosquitoes away, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all of that, so I let myself drift off into a carbon-monoxide induced sleep

I woke up to find that the kid who had been sitting next to me at the start of the trip was now sleeping on top of me. We started a routine where I would wake him and get him back to his seat, and he would then instantly fall asleep and slump back into mine. This repeated on a fifteen second cycle for about an hour. His mother tried to intervene once on my behalf, but got such a scolding from her ten-year old son that she was effectively out of the fight. This exhausted what little sympathy I had for the disrespectful brat and I was about to elbow him onto the floor when we arrived at the half-way point of Marsah Martouh and they left. I'm very glad that I didn't try to overnight it here. It's lonely and it's cold and the only place to get food is a 24-hour LibyaOil. U.S. regulations used to prohibit me from shopping with the Libyans, but I think we're friends with Qaddafi again, so that may no longer be the case.

With the seat to myself, I fell back asleep quickly. When I woke up two hours later, I was freezing! I'd forgotten how cold nights in the desert can get, and this was truly desert. It was as flat as an asphalt parking lot and had even less vegetation. It stretched as far as the eye could see. It was relentless. I went back to sleep.

We arrived in Siwa an hour before sunrise. It was the first time I'd stepped off a bus in North Africa without instantly being swarmed by taxi drivers offering rides. The place was empty. The famous ruins of Shali, still illuminated by floodlights, loomed over the town. The only noise came from a few ambitious donkeys and roosters getting an early start on what, before the morning was over, would turn into a ridiculous cacophony of braying and crowing. For now, at least, everything was relatively quiet. I found my way through the maze of melted mud walls and towers of Shali to the top of the acropolis, where I watched the sun rise over the dunes of the Great Sand Sea and the palm fields of the oasis. I reminded myself that almost exactly one year ago, I was working in London as a corporate lawyer - a job I despised. I would say that the quality of my life has improved greatly since then.

* A more accurate motto would be "Nothing in Cairo works twice."
** For anyone trying this on their own, the Lonely Planet guidebook is out of date: the Alex to Siwa bus service is operated by West and Middle Delta Bus Company, with the last bus leaving from the New Terminal in Moharrem Bey (not from Sidi Gaber) at 10:00 p.m. Tickets cost LE 35 and the trip takes approximately nine hours.