Siwa

Siwa is an oasis town in the west of Egypt, rather close to Libya, kinda. Here's a map for a bit of a sense of geography. You might be intrested to know that when we left Siwa we headed east, yeah, over that bit with no roads...

Siwa is also a very conservative Berber town. You didn't see too many women about, and the older ones were totally covered. It was a bit odd, but as Paul and I had been to Berber towns before in Morocco and Libya I think it was less of a shock for us than some of the others.



A woman in Siwa (image taken from here)


It was a real change from the other places we'd visited, and in some ways felt like the chilled out places you get near the coast (sand + palm trees + water must be formula).

We went on a bike ride the first morning to check out a few temples and the oh-so-relaxing Cleopatra's Spring.



View from our room to the old town of Siwa


On the bikes


Mountain of the Dead


Valda and Kay being ladies who chat



Temple of the Oracle (where Alexander the Great came to find out if he was going to have children; we on the other hand just wanted to know if there was good coffee in the area).


Cleopatra's Spring


The Spring


Delia and Amy


Turns out the Oracle was right when good coffee was predicted


Fran and Amy looking very stressed while waiting for their coffees