The next day we let ourselves have a leisurely morning, going back to the restaurant/concrete box for breakfast, before heading out on our Safari at 2pm. Hemeida showed up at our hotel with the two drivers Abdo and Fathi (pronounced like Fot-hee), and another dude whom I can't remember the name of probably because he spoke very little--in any language--and basically just helped with chores. We split up into the two 4WD SUVs and headed out into the desert after stopping to stock up on some waters, everyone's excitement building the whole time.
I'd secretly been waiting ever since I got to Egypt for the chance to stand out in the desert with sand dunes stretching out in every direction from me as far I could see, and this was my chance. After about twenty minutes of driving south, our drivers stopped up on top of a big ridge to give us a chance to take pictures and as soon as I stepped out from the car I got my first taste of what it must feel like to really live out in--or should I say with the desert. Before then, I had always lived in the desert that is Egypt in some kind of bubble, be it my residence in a gentrified island neighborhood, the mammoth urban sprawl that is Cairo, or the wifi enabled buses I take over desert highways to get to campus five days a week. Even my torturous bus from
Cairo to Siwa maintained the delusion of a solid barrier between us and that golden thing out the window. No doubt, standing three feet away from the 4WD vehicles on our touristy safari, I was hardly living the bedouin life, but from that moment on in my time in Siwa, I kept trying to wrap my mind around that something that I felt emanating from that desert.
There's not a lot I can say to articulate it, but the thing I immediately noticed standing there on top of a sand dune was how the desert immediately felt so distinctly alive. The desert is like a stern teacher, intolerant of weakness or stupidity in those daring enough to study with it. It cares not for its students. It cares only about those who can succeed without the cushy learning environment of more hospitable geographies. To those who can make it, it offers a few springs, dates, oases, and the mystique that at one time convinced the civilized world that a preeminent oracle lived there. It's no surprise that one of the most powerful human beings to live in the pre-WMD era sought this place out. Alexander the Great knew that living in the desert begot a power that even he did not have, and I swear to god I could feel it.
After marvelling thusly over the desert, and taking some dramatic shots of ourselves, we drove a little further to the cold spring of Bir Wahed. Now I'll be honest, this cold spring at the bottom of a desert valley was more of what I imagined an oases to be; it was more like the small watering hole with a little bit of greenery clinging to existence nearby that some lost soul marooned in the desert would miraculously stumble upon in his last hour of life. We were much more comfortable than said lost soul, but the waters were still amazing to swim in. When we were down in the water it looked fairly small and I tried to swim to the far corner only to realize it was a lot longer than I had thought. I am aware on some basic levels of the science underlying desert springs--these little depositories of liquid pressured up from the ground beneath--but that being said, I still found myself wondering where the hell this water came from, and how it managed to stay there out in the middle of the desert. I mean, it's the desert, right--indeed, this is the Sahara desert, in many ways, the prototypical desert of stories--so how can that water actually stay there?
There had been a few other tourists on their own safaris (less cool than ours I am, perhaps delusionally, convinced since we had Hemeida) at the water's entry point, and when I returned from the opposite bank of the basin I found my friends talking with a haughty little Egyptian boy shooting at the fish in the water with an air-soft pistol. I think it was Nora or Julia who tried to say something in Arabic to the boy only to have the boy impatiently cut her off and tell us "I can SPEAK English..." From there on out our conversation with him and his slightly more reserved younger brother was mostly in English (this is, unfortunately, not unreflective of how all Egyptians are about speaking English with us I might add). The two told us in their perfect English about their educations back in Cairo, where they lived, and about all the things they did with their dad, who from their descriptions and from said perfect English, we concluded must be very rich. Their English was so perfect, in fact, that they used swear words with all the nuance and fluency of a college student, and we enjoyed a rather comedic moment after the older, snottier one dropped a big ol' S-bomb after narrowly missing a fish for the 89th time with his air-soft gun. When we asked him how he knew that word, he said mysteriously, "I know many bad words..." trailing off as if to allude to some dark past that he could not bear to rehash. We left the boys around the time when the older boy, having gotten frustrated with the inaccuracy of his air-soft pistol, ran off to get "the uzi." Indeed, he came back with what looked like an air-soft uzi which was apparently more effective since we heard him cheering as we walked away.
There's not a lot I can say to articulate it, but the thing I immediately noticed standing there on top of a sand dune was how the desert immediately felt so distinctly alive. The desert is like a stern teacher, intolerant of weakness or stupidity in those daring enough to study with it. It cares not for its students. It cares only about those who can succeed without the cushy learning environment of more hospitable geographies. To those who can make it, it offers a few springs, dates, oases, and the mystique that at one time convinced the civilized world that a preeminent oracle lived there. It's no surprise that one of the most powerful human beings to live in the pre-WMD era sought this place out. Alexander the Great knew that living in the desert begot a power that even he did not have, and I swear to god I could feel it.
After marvelling thusly over the desert, and taking some dramatic shots of ourselves, we drove a little further to the cold spring of Bir Wahed. Now I'll be honest, this cold spring at the bottom of a desert valley was more of what I imagined an oases to be; it was more like the small watering hole with a little bit of greenery clinging to existence nearby that some lost soul marooned in the desert would miraculously stumble upon in his last hour of life. We were much more comfortable than said lost soul, but the waters were still amazing to swim in. When we were down in the water it looked fairly small and I tried to swim to the far corner only to realize it was a lot longer than I had thought. I am aware on some basic levels of the science underlying desert springs--these little depositories of liquid pressured up from the ground beneath--but that being said, I still found myself wondering where the hell this water came from, and how it managed to stay there out in the middle of the desert. I mean, it's the desert, right--indeed, this is the Sahara desert, in many ways, the prototypical desert of stories--so how can that water actually stay there?There had been a few other tourists on their own safaris (less cool than ours I am, perhaps delusionally, convinced since we had Hemeida) at the water's entry point, and when I returned from the opposite bank of the basin I found my friends talking with a haughty little Egyptian boy shooting at the fish in the water with an air-soft pistol. I think it was Nora or Julia who tried to say something in Arabic to the boy only to have the boy impatiently cut her off and tell us "I can SPEAK English..." From there on out our conversation with him and his slightly more reserved younger brother was mostly in English (this is, unfortunately, not unreflective of how all Egyptians are about speaking English with us I might add). The two told us in their perfect English about their educations back in Cairo, where they lived, and about all the things they did with their dad, who from their descriptions and from said perfect English, we concluded must be very rich. Their English was so perfect, in fact, that they used swear words with all the nuance and fluency of a college student, and we enjoyed a rather comedic moment after the older, snottier one dropped a big ol' S-bomb after narrowly missing a fish for the 89th time with his air-soft gun. When we asked him how he knew that word, he said mysteriously, "I know many bad words..." trailing off as if to allude to some dark past that he could not bear to rehash. We left the boys around the time when the older boy, having gotten frustrated with the inaccuracy of his air-soft pistol, ran off to get "the uzi." Indeed, he came back with what looked like an air-soft uzi which was apparently more effective since we heard him cheering as we walked away.
We stayed in our bathing suits as we were heading just up and over the edge of the cold spring's valley and down into another one with the Bir Wahed hot spring. This one looked even more stereotypically oasis-y with palm trees and everything, except for the pungently sulfurous hot spring with man-made brick walls and a pipe managing the hot spring's pool. It was basically a big natural hot tub, and we only stayed in it for a bit as two sizable groups of German and Italian tourists arrived. We drove onward through the golden dunes as twilight begun to descent over us to a vast white valley full of ancient coral, shell and fossils left over from the ancient era that saw this desert at the bottom of a vast ocean.
Up till now we had been walking barefoot from the first time we stepped out into the desert and discovered that shoes were actually no more useful in this ever-sinking terrain than our own feet, and the feeling of the smooth, clean sand between our toes, even when it was still hot earlier in the day, just seemed right. Plus Hemeida was doing it...Anyway, we had to put our shoes on for the sharp fossil beds. That was all that was about.
From the fossil beds we got back into the trucks and rode up and down the natural roller coaster of dunes to a spot suitable for sandboarding. Driving in the sand dunes, let me just say quickly, is awesome. I know the other car's driver had some loud Arab pop music bumping real loud the whole time they were driving, but when I asked our driver if we could have some rockin Arab tunes also he tsked disapprovingly and said to me "Driving in the desert is not for music," and he looked over at the other car with an annoyed glare. He told us that he wanted to be able to hear his engine as he was constantly shifting gears and shifting the power distribution to different wheels in order to accommodate the difficult driving. I supposed it was probably for the best as I didn't really want to experience having the truck roll, though I never felt in danger of that even when we went up or down (seemingly) impossibly steep dunes.
At the top of a steep dune the trucks deposited us with Hemeida and what I'm pretty sure was just a snowboard, then they left to go set up our camp. Sandboarding was a lot of fun, even with the grueling hike back up the hill, and I was surprised at how doable it was considering my inability to skateboard/move laterally. I imagine it was a lot like snowboarding but slower and harder to turn towards the inside. As we boarded, we watched the sun set and looked forward to dinner.
When we arrived at camp we could smell the chicken roasting over the open fire as we settled in. The camp was on the south side of a big rock and had a covered area with what looked like walls consisting of thick, colorful rugs and an open area set up on some more of the rugs. We ate a phenomenal dinner (since all meals taken while camping are automatically even more delicious) of fire-roasted, spiced chicken, couscous with veggies, and a tasty homemade oriental salad (i.e. the generic tomato-cucumber-lemon vinegarette salad that is the standard here). I would have taken pictures but it was dark and a flash seemed out of the question in this world lite only by the fire and the stars. After dinner, the Siwans made tea (because no Egyptian could go without tea after dinner) and we tried to think of something we could all do. I came up with the idea of playing telephone half-jokingly, and then realized that it could potentially be really funny to play with the three Siwans. We played it with phrases in almost every language any one of us knew and we had lines going around in Arabic, English, Siwan, French, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Italian, and Eritrean. We could have gotten Thai and Punjabi in there too if Nav, our resident omniglot, had felt like sharing those languages too, but regardless it actually turned out to be probably the most fun game of telephone I have ever played.
The game petered out and our conversation grew quiet as we all began directing our attention to the bright, clear stars. It's hard to convey how many stars there were, but it may be illustrative that I couldn't find any constellations...because there were too many stars to pick out the main ones. It seemed a perfect night (also, our only night) to go dune-exploring, so we all set out to climb the adjacent dunes. I made the ill-advised decision of climbing (barefoot) one of the rock mountains (as opposed to the sand ones) because I thought it looked highest, only to realize the dune to the right of it was taller still. Daniel had climbed to the top of that one some time ago and not come back, so we decided to follow him and see what had captured his attention. A slight breeze kept us cool as we trudged up the sandy incline, and the cool sand felt pretty amazing on my bare feet, so the hike up the sinking terrain seemed pleasant. At the top of the dune we could see the town of Siwa almost on the Northern horizon and eventually we all ended up laying on the side of a dune and just watching the stars mostly in silence. All in all it was just beautiful.
For the sake of getting this out, I'll post this without pictures for now, and then I'll add them tomorrow and try to finish this recounting. We were supposed to head back the next night, but instead we stayed another night, which ended up being the best decision imaginable.
Hemeida, our guide, watching the sunset.
The game petered out and our conversation grew quiet as we all began directing our attention to the bright, clear stars. It's hard to convey how many stars there were, but it may be illustrative that I couldn't find any constellations...because there were too many stars to pick out the main ones. It seemed a perfect night (also, our only night) to go dune-exploring, so we all set out to climb the adjacent dunes. I made the ill-advised decision of climbing (barefoot) one of the rock mountains (as opposed to the sand ones) because I thought it looked highest, only to realize the dune to the right of it was taller still. Daniel had climbed to the top of that one some time ago and not come back, so we decided to follow him and see what had captured his attention. A slight breeze kept us cool as we trudged up the sandy incline, and the cool sand felt pretty amazing on my bare feet, so the hike up the sinking terrain seemed pleasant. At the top of the dune we could see the town of Siwa almost on the Northern horizon and eventually we all ended up laying on the side of a dune and just watching the stars mostly in silence. All in all it was just beautiful.
The crew lined up looking out at the sunset as Daniel sandboards
For the sake of getting this out, I'll post this without pictures for now, and then I'll add them tomorrow and try to finish this recounting. We were supposed to head back the next night, but instead we stayed another night, which ended up being the best decision imaginable.
To be continued...
Edit: Hope you like the pictures. The rest of the album is on my facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment