Jenyfer Matthews

First a little information about Siwa:

The oasis of Siwa is more than the gateway to the Great Sand Sea. This once sleepy frontier town, less than 50 kilometers from the border of Libya, has a rich cultural history. Siwa is home to Egypt’s only native Berber population as well as the famed Temple of the Oracle. Alexander the Great traveled here and obtained the confirmation he sought: the priests of the Oracle addressed him as deity and established his right to rule Egypt. Famous for its olives and dates, Siwa was once an important stop on the Caravan Route. But to protect the oasis from hostile invaders the Siwans built the Fortress of Shali in the 12th century and for hundreds of years no one went in. And while Siwa first appeared on an Egyptian map in the 26th dynasty, it was likely settled long before that. Flints found in the area suggest that Siwa was inhabited during the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras when the barren desert was a lush savannah.

We left Cairo for the Siwa Oasis, located in north central Egypt, bright and early on Thursday morning. This was a tour organized by the university where my husband works so there were about 50 of us on a huge bus, driving time two days. There are worse ways to travel in Egypt, believe me!

I took my first picture of the trip at a rest stop about an 1 1/2 hours outside of Cairo. (Note: clicking on any picture will make it larger)

I love taking pictures of goofy signs and how on earth could I resist the irony of this one – of a coffee with a name like this in such a conservative country? Sole Agent of Latin Lover in Egypt, indeed!

Our first real stop was at the Al Alamein War Memorial. I am no WWII history buff but apparently Al Alamein was the site of a huge battle in which the allies were able to defeat the Germans, ending German hopes of occupying Egypt, controlling access to the Suez Canal and gaining access to Middle East oil fields. An important turning point in the war in North Africa.

For a while I read the headstones, the names and ages of the soldiers killed, the inscriptions added by the family they left behind, but I soon had to stop. It was incredibly poignant to see the number of headstones – so many young men, life ended too soon, interred in this remote and dusty foreign place so far from home, some unidentified. The number of headstones here represents those they actually found – there were apparently tens of thousands killed whose bodies were never recovered.

We then drove a few more hours to Marsa Matrouh, a city on the North Coast, arriving late afternoon. Our hotel sat on the edge of the Mediterranean. It was almost impossible to look away from the vivid aquas and blues of the water there – and equally impossible to capture the colors with my camera at that time of the day. I suspect we’ll go back at some point, just to spend the weekend on the beach. The children did not get their fill of beach time during our short stay there.

Stay tuned…tomorrow I will post more pictures taken in and around the Siwa area….

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