Siwa. What is that you may ask? Well I had been wondering the same thing for several weeks as Kassi and Shauna planned away. Apparently it was an Oasis in the middle of the desert. And a fine one at that.
So let me begin with getting there. We decided to leave around 10 o'clock at night. Hop aboard a bus and travel what we thought would be 10 hours away from Alexandria. So that we could arrive in Siwa around 7am in time to meet our tour guide and begin our day. Little did we know that we would begin arrive 2 hours early before the sun had risen and we bugged by men--who's intentions may have or may not have been so swell, as they offered to take us to the nearest hotel.
One of our program directors said that Egyptians were always willing to help out foreigners, but still at 5am in the morning, we decided to stick it out at the bus station until our guide arrived. His name was Muhammad and he was probably one of the nicest guys we'd met. Luckily he'd answered the phone and headed over and was at the station in what seemed like 30 minutes. He came up to us, and asked for Kassi...and inside I'm thinking God I hope she didn't give anybody her name because this could be anybody.
now PAUSE can I just say that one thing I've learned on this trip is the importance of trust. Trust in two ways.
One
Back home, I'm the one who plans, plans, plans, and I often have the attitude of "if I want something done right, I've got to do it myself" but being here I've learned that it's nice to have someone do the planning. Though it sometimes throws me for flips because I want to know every single detail about every little thing right then and there, I've learned that patience is just as important as that trust. And I think that also flows over into our relationship with God. We want to know everything. Often times God will give us a desire, or a vision and we wonder how exactly are we going to get there and he doesn't show you everything you want to see because A) you might not be able to handle all the details of the unforeseen, B)He gives you one step at a time and will light your path only so far in order that you stay close to him and trust him.
The second lesson of trust came as the day went on. Now that I think about it, there may even be three lessons. But continuing on with story. The main reason we drove out at night was to avoid staying in a hotel so that we could just sleep on the bus and start the day when we got there. Well there wasn't too much sleeping on the bus because we made a few stops in between, there were movies going, and music, and seats being kicked, and it was cold! Anyways--at about 5am that hotel was sounding pretty good. So when Muhammad got there we asked him about one--he asked us about prices and we said the nicest of the cheapest.
So he took us to his pick up truck where we climbed in the back all six of us girls--me, Maddie, Shauna, Gabby, Kassi, and Betty Loraine and took us to a little hotel. We rang the doorbell and Yousef the owner of the hotel let us in. We then debated going right to sleep or going to watch the sunrise. We were all pretty agreed on sleeping until Muhammad pointed to the place we'd be seeing it from. We all agreed, locked our stuff up in our room and went to watch it rise.
It was probably one of the prettiest sunrises I'd seen as the sun rose up over city and the rosy color shown on the city, the dunes, various plateaus, and the very spot we were sitting upon. Afterwards we went back to our hotel that we go for 40 guinea (8 bucks a room) that fit three people comfortably. We basically used it to crash for the next 3 or so hours and as a home base for the remainder of the day. The hotel also had bikes that we could borrow for like a dollar and we went to Fatnas Island...which sounds like fatness island, but it was beautiful and there were some fallen palm trees that we climbed and stood on over the water. Gabby and I climbed on top of one that grew sideways and it was really cool. There was also a spring there and we met a guy from Japan who was traveling Egypt by himself. He was accompanied by the Egyptian guy who claimed he didn't know how to swim and wanted us to teach him. We didn't buy it. And it's a good thing because he eventually was asking for our phone numbers--which you don't give out to men. and as he was leaving kept asking how to get back to town. It was pretty lame because there was only one street out there. Stupid man haha and as we rode our bikes we left him in the dust as he asked to kiss us. no no no no no. lol
The second half of the day included Sandunes and sandunes galore. I'm really tired right now! We got back a few hours ago, but i wanted to at least start writing! Until then....marinate on this
so that afternoon we went out for our desert Safari. We met up with Muhammad who gathered everything up into our Land Cruiser and we headed out. Probably about 10 minutes into the ride we were out of the town and looking out into the desert. Our driver pulled over and let some of the air out of tires...i thought that was a little weird because earlier that day when we were riding bikes, my tire pressure was a little low and when we went from regular cement to a patch of sand the bike would slide....and sometimes i'd fall off! ALSO that was the first time in like 10 years that i'd ridden a bike so i was a little rusty!
Anyways, I kept wondering why he'd taken the air out. It was obvious from previous experience that day that air in the tires is something pretty necessary...in fact necessary in every day life...but i guess this was how sand roading works. you want to slip and slide? i didn't want to get stuck in the desert. good news is we didn't :) though that would have made this story even more interesting!
so we were off...i couldn't tell if we were going 90 km/h or 90mp/h. Either way we were going realllllly fast and you could also see all the tracks from other cars and all the dunes just passing by! Our driver even made some sharp turns and then all of a sudden dropped down like 30 freakin feet! we all screamed and then realized that it was just the beginning.
for about an hour we were driving around hills and these really tall dunes going around corners that made the car tilt sideways. Call me crazy...i know doing that was
but sooo many times i doubted my driver just like how sometimes we can doubt God and i had to remember that these guys had done this several times and there were tracks where other cars had taken the same path. I just had to trust them. Yes....it was risky, yes we could've been hurt, but what's life if you don't take chances, if you never feel your heart pound, if you never have a little faith that things are going to be alright
Later on we even went to the random hot and cold springs that were in the middle of the desert. They were always surrounded by big tall patches of grass. We thought it was so crazy.
One of the things we girls did along the way was take pictures. TONS of pictures. they're on facebook if you haven't seen them already. When we first left Alexandria re realized that when we sat down together the 6 of us wore 3 different colors--and the 2 wearing the same some how ending up sitting next to eachother. We thought it would be a fun competitive adventure, but eventually after seeing how awesome everything was--we thought it would be the perfect place for "boy band" cd cover pictures. and so every once in a while throughout the trip we'd be like "BOY BAND PIC" and we'd all stop and pose. It was a lot of fun :)
So we went to various hot and cold springs and even went sand boarding. Yes, sand boarding. A little mix between snow and sand. I'd never done any type of boarding and had a blast at my first time. The only bad part was: that after we slid down the sand mountains, there were no lifts to bring us back to the top....so we have to climb up all by ourselves! lets just say i was REALLY sore and tired.
soon the sun was setting. We started at four and our adventures lasted until dusk. We watched the sun set over the dunes from the top of another set of dunes. It was gorgeous. and can i just say that the African sun is really so much bigger than anywhere else? There's just something about it that makes it sooo BIG and so bright and soo beautiful. As the sun went down, Maddie (my roommate) and I decided to do the same. There was a little thing we used to dO when we were kids, and we found it only fitting to do the same here. Roll down the dune as if we were rolling down a grassy hill.
And we did. And it lasted a long time and i could feel the sand and just when i thought I was coming to a stop I'd keep flopping and flopping.
It was fun. And yes I was covered in sand, but it was well worth it. We'd be sleeping out there anyways. No big deal! So after the sun set we went down the biggest hill we'd gone down yet. We stopped our car right at the edge so that when we got back in it was on!
The hill was crazy big, but once again I could see the tracks where the other cars had successfully gone down. A little nerve-racking because it seemed like we would flip but never did...it was basically a sand rollercoaster <---how cool would that be to get back in the states? We also went looking for fossils. Did you know that the Sahara desert used to be under the ocean?? How awesome is that? The whole desert. I think its so funny because there were some parts of the desert where you could see rock plateaus and it was so wierd to think that maybe just maybe there was some undiscovered land that had been covered by a flood thousands of years before Which makes me get into the part that was soo amazing--the deeper part of our tri
?p. So far I've talked about all the stuff we've done, but I've really just scraped the surface. There's so much more that I will write on in a bit! but once again it is really late and i'd rather expound up on it at a later time when i've got more energy :)
until then!
PS i've got to tell you guys about my new arabic skills and some culture stuff! theres only 3 weeks left (really two if you don't count travelling) in sha'allah we'll be going to israel and jordan. we figured it was a must because how often are you in the Middle East?
Alright so this weekend was awesome. Fii hakiika (in reality) all of that pretty much happened in the same day. We drove out one day, hung out and explored the next, and then drove back the following day. So in that one day--that awesome 24 hours--it was great seeing God reveal himself through the desert and scenery that we came upon. It was great to see how endless and timeless things can be. The desert was so vast, so huge. The idea that the hot springs and cold springs are all that are left from an ocean that covered the Sahara years ago. The idea that perhaps underneath that sand, underneath the rocks and fossils that we'd found, could be another civilization completely blew my mind. The idea that mumkin (mapybe) Earth is really just a bunch of mountains on top of mountains....perhaps just a bunch of pointy pieces shooting up from the center is kind of weird but makes sense when you think about it. And not pointy as ohh i'm going to poke you, but pointy as in layered and mountainous.
Think about some of the ancient civilizations that have temples high up on a hill, and then how there are homes built in the mountains and stuff, and then how we can live where we are now-- while the largest mountains aren't even above the surface, but deep in the ocean. Are you imagining this?
To me it would look something like this.
I know. This is a werid. And yes even I'm a little weird. Okay maybe a lot weird. But still do you get what i'm saying? maybe this one will work better
Yes, this is MUCH better! the red is the mountains and such where more fossils and civilizations might be! I think its pretttttty cool the sand is what we have uncovered so far!
anyways it was mind bending to think of all the possibilities! who knowwws maybe adam and eve are down there somewhere!
Also, spending time just sleeping under stars next to a giant sand dune was also very surreal. The weekend was really. Whethere it was riding bicycles and climbing plam trees, to sitting in a cold spring with fish swimming around it in the middle of the desert and sleeping in the sand (we had mats) was quite the experience. I remember going and just thinking this cannot be real life. But it was. This is real life and this is Egypt.
I remember writing in one of my scholarship essays or college application essays about how i used to want to be an actress in an adventure film (still that would be great) and then how awesome it would be to actually have your own real life adventure. It seems like now I'm actually having one.... and it seems like it could be just the beginning
Next up, Mount Sinai and Sharm el Sheikh. Where Moses got the 10 commandments and a caribbean like tourist spot reknown to europeans!
I leave in roughly 1 hour! Until Next time
so that afternoon we went out for our desert Safari. We met up with Muhammad who gathered everything up into our Land Cruiser and we headed out. Probably about 10 minutes into the ride we were out of the town and looking out into the desert. Our driver pulled over and let some of the air out of tires...i thought that was a little weird because earlier that day when we were riding bikes, my tire pressure was a little low and when we went from regular cement to a patch of sand the bike would slide....and sometimes i'd fall off! ALSO that was the first time in like 10 years that i'd ridden a bike so i was a little rusty!
Anyways, I kept wondering why he'd taken the air out. It was obvious from previous experience that day that air in the tires is something pretty necessary...in fact necessary in every day life...but i guess this was how sand roading works. you want to slip and slide? i didn't want to get stuck in the desert. good news is we didn't :) though that would have made this story even more interesting!
so we were off...i couldn't tell if we were going 90 km/h or 90mp/h. Either way we were going realllllly fast and you could also see all the tracks from other cars and all the dunes just passing by! Our driver even made some sharp turns and then all of a sudden dropped down like 30 freakin feet! we all screamed and then realized that it was just the beginning.
for about an hour we were driving around hills and these really tall dunes going around corners that made the car tilt sideways. Call me crazy...i know doing that was
but sooo many times i doubted my driver just like how sometimes we can doubt God and i had to remember that these guys had done this several times and there were tracks where other cars had taken the same path. I just had to trust them. Yes....it was risky, yes we could've been hurt, but what's life if you don't take chances, if you never feel your heart pound, if you never have a little faith that things are going to be alright
Later on we even went to the random hot and cold springs that were in the middle of the desert. They were always surrounded by big tall patches of grass. We thought it was so crazy.
One of the things we girls did along the way was take pictures. TONS of pictures. they're on facebook if you haven't seen them already. When we first left Alexandria re realized that when we sat down together the 6 of us wore 3 different colors--and the 2 wearing the same some how ending up sitting next to eachother. We thought it would be a fun competitive adventure, but eventually after seeing how awesome everything was--we thought it would be the perfect place for "boy band" cd cover pictures. and so every once in a while throughout the trip we'd be like "BOY BAND PIC" and we'd all stop and pose. It was a lot of fun :)
So we went to various hot and cold springs and even went sand boarding. Yes, sand boarding. A little mix between snow and sand. I'd never done any type of boarding and had a blast at my first time. The only bad part was: that after we slid down the sand mountains, there were no lifts to bring us back to the top....so we have to climb up all by ourselves! lets just say i was REALLY sore and tired.
soon the sun was setting. We started at four and our adventures lasted until dusk. We watched the sun set over the dunes from the top of another set of dunes. It was gorgeous. and can i just say that the African sun is really so much bigger than anywhere else? There's just something about it that makes it sooo BIG and so bright and soo beautiful. As the sun went down, Maddie (my roommate) and I decided to do the same. There was a little thing we used to dO when we were kids, and we found it only fitting to do the same here. Roll down the dune as if we were rolling down a grassy hill.
And we did. And it lasted a long time and i could feel the sand and just when i thought I was coming to a stop I'd keep flopping and flopping.
It was fun. And yes I was covered in sand, but it was well worth it. We'd be sleeping out there anyways. No big deal! So after the sun set we went down the biggest hill we'd gone down yet. We stopped our car right at the edge so that when we got back in it was on!
The hill was crazy big, but once again I could see the tracks where the other cars had successfully gone down. A little nerve-racking because it seemed like we would flip but never did...it was basically a sand rollercoaster <---how cool would that be to get back in the states? We also went looking for fossils. Did you know that the Sahara desert used to be under the ocean?? How awesome is that? The whole desert. I think its so funny because there were some parts of the desert where you could see rock plateaus and it was so wierd to think that maybe just maybe there was some undiscovered land that had been covered by a flood thousands of years before Which makes me get into the part that was soo amazing--the deeper part of our tri
?p. So far I've talked about all the stuff we've done, but I've really just scraped the surface. There's so much more that I will write on in a bit! but once again it is really late and i'd rather expound up on it at a later time when i've got more energy :)
until then!
PS i've got to tell you guys about my new arabic skills and some culture stuff! theres only 3 weeks left (really two if you don't count travelling) in sha'allah we'll be going to israel and jordan. we figured it was a must because how often are you in the Middle East?
Alright so this weekend was awesome. Fii hakiika (in reality) all of that pretty much happened in the same day. We drove out one day, hung out and explored the next, and then drove back the following day. So in that one day--that awesome 24 hours--it was great seeing God reveal himself through the desert and scenery that we came upon. It was great to see how endless and timeless things can be. The desert was so vast, so huge. The idea that the hot springs and cold springs are all that are left from an ocean that covered the Sahara years ago. The idea that perhaps underneath that sand, underneath the rocks and fossils that we'd found, could be another civilization completely blew my mind. The idea that mumkin (mapybe) Earth is really just a bunch of mountains on top of mountains....perhaps just a bunch of pointy pieces shooting up from the center is kind of weird but makes sense when you think about it. And not pointy as ohh i'm going to poke you, but pointy as in layered and mountainous.
Think about some of the ancient civilizations that have temples high up on a hill, and then how there are homes built in the mountains and stuff, and then how we can live where we are now-- while the largest mountains aren't even above the surface, but deep in the ocean. Are you imagining this?
To me it would look something like this.
I know. This is a werid. And yes even I'm a little weird. Okay maybe a lot weird. But still do you get what i'm saying? maybe this one will work better
Yes, this is MUCH better! the red is the mountains and such where more fossils and civilizations might be! I think its pretttttty cool the sand is what we have uncovered so far!
anyways it was mind bending to think of all the possibilities! who knowwws maybe adam and eve are down there somewhere!
Also, spending time just sleeping under stars next to a giant sand dune was also very surreal. The weekend was really. Whethere it was riding bicycles and climbing plam trees, to sitting in a cold spring with fish swimming around it in the middle of the desert and sleeping in the sand (we had mats) was quite the experience. I remember going and just thinking this cannot be real life. But it was. This is real life and this is Egypt.
I remember writing in one of my scholarship essays or college application essays about how i used to want to be an actress in an adventure film (still that would be great) and then how awesome it would be to actually have your own real life adventure. It seems like now I'm actually having one.... and it seems like it could be just the beginning
Next up, Mount Sinai and Sharm el Sheikh. Where Moses got the 10 commandments and a caribbean like tourist spot reknown to europeans!
I leave in roughly 1 hour! Until Next time
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