رحلة حلوة - Beautiful trip

Rahla heluwa = Beautiful trip

Ahem. So, I wrote the below post days ago and just forgot to actually post it. It might now seem silly and frivolous to describe our trip to Siwa, considering that in Egypt yesterday, tonight, and almost certainly tomorrow there are far more important, pressing, and dire current events unfolding. Elections begin in exactly one week and some violence in very localized, specific places has occurred. I will write about the protests, but it does behoove me to first learn more about them as the events take shape. Right now, everything I'm learning about the protests in Cairo and Alexandria are filtered through twitter or word-of-mouth. Follow Al-Jazeera English or Almasryalyoum for decent info, friends and loved ones! And do keep Egypt in your prayers, puh-leeze. As I type these words, an embarrassing number of my classmates and I are abuzz on facebook, trying to calm each other's fears or suspicions that we might be evacuated. There's no talk of that yet, whatsoever, we've just been told from the beginning of this program to be ready for the worst. Anyway. Back in time a week or so to Siwa.

Not expecting much aside from a nice break from the usual, the day after eid al-adha, I was happy to embark on a trip to Siwa with the whole group. All of us in one big ol' bus. Siwa is an oasis town in the Sahara not far from the Libyan border, and it was reachable only by plane or by camel not too many decades ago. As such, the once very isolated bedouin culture is different, the language is derived from the amazigh berber tongue, and tourism, farming dates and olives, and drug trafficking (unfortunately) are among the only major economic activities. The fresh dates on the palm trees are unbelievable in texture and taste, the views are rustic and often spectacular, and the locals know how to cook some daaaamn good chicken in pits buried under the sand. 

In short, because pictures are more fun than any written post...

The ruins were intriguing.

 Riding bikes through them and hushed date fields was a lot of fun.

Sunset on the salt flats was stunning. 

"Safari" means bedouin drivers speeding up and down stories-tall sand dunes at 100 mph. Like a roller coaster, without seatbelts and with Arab music on cassette tapes in the background. It also means sand in your ears for days and oh my gosh I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, and you too, yes even YOU Sophie, would undoubtedly enjoy it as well. 

The views in the Sahara were oft-eerie, oft-beautiful and prompted us to have all sorts of half-assed philosophical discussions.

Sandsledding is harder than it looks.

After the sun set in the desert, we alternated between huddling around a gigantic olive wood campfire and wandering up and down full-moon lit sand dunes. The night was surreal and chilly, and unfortunately, a good  portion of our crew didn't sleep a wink because it was simply TOO COLD and apparently a sufficient number of blankets wasn't included in the price of the safari. (I was part of a group of girls who huddled under one filthy, yet cozy, tattered rainbow blanket all night. When we awoke we thought our frozen feet might fall off before we could crawl to the campfire). At least we slept. Sorry sorry sorry to my friends who were literally huddled around the campfire outside, in the sand, sans blanket!

The next morning, happy yet unshowered and pretty exhausted (ain't no bathroom in the desert) we arrived at a resort in Marsa Matruh, on the Mediterranean Coast a few hours west of Alexandria. I don't think any of the students in my group expected a night in a nice resort, and it was a little strange (all of our scholarships come from government money - thanks taxpayers! :/ ) but welcome. It was probably the first night on a normal, comfy, warm mattress that I've had in Egypt, even if the water turned off in the middle of the night, and I got chided by reception for not returning my towel to the 16-year old towel man. (What? Why? Why am I not allowed to leave my used towel in the hotel room?)

 The color of the water was astounding, and we realized that the familiar grey-green of the Mediterranean that we see every day in the city results from Alex's proximity to the Nile delta. In Marsa Matruh, no rush of fresh, silty water dilutes the pristine blue of the Mediterranean, and lord have mercy, it was gawgeous. 

As a great finale to our trip and a crazy coincidence (it was Veterans' Day!) we visited German and Italian military tombs and a Commonwealth WWII Cemetery in Alamein, not far outside of Alex. Desert campaigns were fought on Northern Egyptian land in '41 and '42 and imposing memorials stand on little patches of carefully manicured and maintained land, all to commemorate the loss of life that occurred there years and years ago.

I honestly had a sinking feeling in my heart as we pulled into Alex, that's thankfully evaporated now. Alex comes with homework, sleep deprivation, and cold, rainy weather, but currently it's home home home.

(But man, with the current unrest, we'll see what happens... )

الله عالم وربنا يستر