Alexandria

After the desert, we were off to Alexandria. Quite a bit of a change from the small desert towns. We stayed at a cute little boutique hotel right on the water.

It was a lot colder in Alexandria, and I remember feeling chilly there and wearing our jackets the whole time. The people also seemed much more modern, and we saw more of men/women holding hands or being affectionate in public. There was even REAL coffee in this city, and quite good I might add... we had amazing lattes at a cafe called Cilantro.

There was a lot of "modern" shops everywhere, and even little alchohol shops where you could buy beer and wine easily. I did make an obvious mistake of asking the guy at the wine shop which wine he thought I should get (a typical question in America) - he glared at me for a second and then told me the one "which most foreigners buy". Oops. Didn't mean to imply that he might drink. Oh well, I just smiled and bought 2 bottles. =)

The 2nd day we were there we headed off with just the 4 of us (Matt & Me, and Matt & Stacey). We saw the Catacombs - underground tombs in Alexandria that were discovered not that long ago (in the last 50 years?) by a donkey falling through the street into some of them. Bummer for the donkey. It was really cool to see these though, they definitley had more of a Roman feel to them compared to the Valley of the Kings down south.

We also saw the Citadel (the castle looking building in the pictures below). There were a ton of locals and school kids with teachers there as well checking it out. The school kids were very amused by us, and all wanted pictures with us on their cell phones. It was pretty funny, although after a while it did seem a tad odd. Haha. We tried to be good sports though.

We also took a long walk back from the Citadel around the harbour, even saw some local fishermen bringing in the days catch which was cool to see. We ended the afternoon seeing the Library, it is really modern and new.

Overall Alexandria was beautiful. We had some cheap seafood, enjoyed the nice city, and a wonderful last dinner out with our whole Intrepid group.

View from our Hotel room

Seafood and Beer, another change from the desert

enjoying some sheesha, apple flavor of course.

Catacombs

The Citadel

There were tons of local school kids touring around with their teachers here, and they all wanted their pictures with us. The teachers even took the pictures for them. It was pretty amusing to us... at least at first.

Into the Desert... (part 3) - Siwa Oasis

Siwa Oasis was the last town that we stopped at in the Desert. It was also the biggest by far. It was farther north, about an 8-10 hour drive south of Alexandria. It also had about 30,000 people living there (I might have totally made that up...).

We ate at the same restaurant about 3 times a day, it was right across from our hotel and it was awesome. It was the only one our tour guide recommended we eat at (also happened to be in the Lonely Planet book), and they cooked all the food with bottled water. They had amazing curry type dishes, chicken couscous dishes cooked in ceramic pots, and even crepes. yum!

We took a half day bicycle tour of the town on the 2nd day, saw some temples and old tombs. We also stopped at Cleopatra's spring, which she "supposedly" bathed at with Alexander the Great back in the day. The second half of the day, about half of our group took jeeps out into the Great Sand Sea (to see the desert I had always imagined), and to try some sand-boarding. We even got to hit up a natural hot spring after sand-boarding.

You dont have to be very old to drive a donkey here. We saw so many kids driving these around. The town of Siwa from our Hotel room.

The Hotel. We made friends with the desk clerk and he played cards with us on the roof one night.

Bicycle tour day

Matt & Stacey

Moutain of the Dead. We hiked up and saw a ton of old tombs buried into the top of the mountain.

View of the Oasis. There are SO many palm trees and Date Trees. They sell tons of Dates everywhere and apparently this Oasis is one of the largest Date exporters around the world.

Cleopatra's Spring.

In town

The Great Sand Sea.

It was really windy here.... this is kind of a funny picture.

Sandboarding! Having snowboarded really helped, although the sand did not give at all and you can't turn or carve.... so you just have to go straight down. And the hills were steep! I think I took one turn, and crashed at the bottom and that was good for me.

Here is Matt Wiggins, showing his skills.

Stacey, also using her snowboarding skills!

Beautiful.

Matt.

Our tour guide Ahmad in the red hoodie. I really like this picture.

Cold water spring we stopped at for a swim.

Me, Matt... the desert and the sunset.