El Andalous - Trip to Siwa Oasis

Cafe at Cleopatra Bath

We finally arrived in Siwa from Marsa Matrouh; the original itinerary was from Cairo direct to Siwa with a stop-off at El Alamein and Marsa Matrouh, but we’d asked to break the journey at Marsa Matrouh and forgo one night in Siwa. Arriving in Siwa made us appreciate just how long the journey would have been had we not had an overnight in Marsa Matrouh.

Siwa is still like old Egypt; not so long ago, there used to be only donkeys and carts in the town, although cars do now drive through. The taxis are still donkey-driven, tuk-tuks, or carts pulled by a moped. The roads were uneven and narrow; the people were relaxed and just wandering around doing their own thing.

We arrived at our accommodation which was an EcoLodge; it had a swimming pool, which wasn’t filled with water, beautiful trees and plants everywhere and the buildings were made out of the traditional clay and salt which is supposed to be a natural insulant. Electricity was low-key but the shower was big enough for three or four people. It was very picturesque.

One of the first things that strikes you about Siwa is all the palm trees. Of course, it’s an oasis, so there’s water, but since the water was not directly where we were (Siwa has around 7000 inhabitants) and the water is in any case more like a huge lake than what you would imagine an oasis to be like, it’s the palm trees that first stick out, especially after a long car journey through desert landscape.

There are a surprising number of things to see at Siwa. We weren’t able to get into the local museum, which was closed each time we went, but we visited the Shali village. This was an old fortress at this location, made out of the traditional clay and salt, but had been washed away over the years . The fortress is being renovated and because we were such a small group. They allowed us to look around.

We were then taken to the Cleopatra Pool; this time, there is some evidence to lead people to believe that Cleopatra was actually there. Joke and I had a quick bathe in the water (with expectations of looking instantly younger, so we were led to believe). Afterwards, I drank a Siwa shake (cinnamon, dates, banana, milk, and ice – delicious!).

After this, we went to Fatanas Island to watch the sun set over the oasis. Once it was dark, we moved on to a local hot spring to relax in the waters – the water was hot enough to make you sweat, but we had the entire place to ourselves, so we were privileged.

The following day was also action-packed. We started off visiting the Temple of the Oracle where Alexander the Great received the oracle as to whether he really was the son of Amun (Zeus). Views from here were amazing – a sea of palm trees to the left, and the edge of the oasis to your right. Then we had a quick visit to the temple of Om Obaidah, although only a few remains were left.

After this, we proceeded to the Mountain of the Dead; it houses over 100 tombs from Pharaonic times and was discovered only during WW2 when the people of Siwa fled to the mountain to hide. We saw one of the tombs that had retained much of the original painting; it was amazing to see something like this outside of Luxor.

Our afternoon was taken up with a trip into the Sahara – the “sea of sand”. We had to be checked in by the police beforehand and the car had to be checked for safety (we had a special 4-wheel drive). Of course, the landscape was vast; there were fossils lying in the sand, and we flew over the sand dunes in our 4-wheel drive. Suddenly, before us, there was an oasis just as you imagine it to be, right in the middle of nowhere in the desert. It turned out to be a hot spring and there was a small cold water lake not far away; we bathed in both and had the hot spring to ourselves. We then watched the sun set and made our way back to Siwa for our last night before travelling back to Cairo the next day.

It was a memorable trip and great to see the less-visited (but equally remarkable) parts of Egypt.

El Andalous - Trip to Marsa Matrouh and Siwa

Entrance to the El Alamein War Museum

The very next day after I’d arrived back from Luxor, I was off again. This time, it was destination Cairo, from where a group of four of us (Joke, Maria, Nicole, and myself) were doing a 3-day trip taking in El Alamein, Marsa Matrouh, and Siwa Oasis. In this blog, I’ll just cover the first part of the trip to El Alamein and Marsa Matrouh. The rest will follow next week.

We took the first class “Blue Bus” to Cairo. This was the first time I’d traveled with Blue Bus and it was a good experience. They had an air conditioned waiting room, the seats were large and you had your own TV screen with music, games, films, etc. There were two drivers for the six hour journey and a guy serving soft drinks on request (included in the ticket). We were provided with a lunchbox with a cheese sandwich, juice, and chocolate baguette. One-way cost around 25 GBP.

It felt quite strange arriving into Cairo and seeing all the trappings of a large city that I hadn’t seen in quite a while – there was the mass of traffic driving in a not particularly orderly fashion (that’s Egypt), many billboards lit up with advertisements (including advertisements of Sahl Hasheesh!), and all the buildings. Progress through the traffic was slow, but it was interesting.

In Cairo, we were picked up by the owner of the B&B where we were staying (a friend of Joke’s) and he recommended somewhere for us to eat. Cairo turned out to be quite different from Hurghada, where it’s fairly easy to get alcohol in restaurants. Here, it seemed like we were the devil incarnate for asking for it, it was placed in a black, opaque bag (as in Hurghada), and we were asked to take our rubbish with us and not leave it in the room since they didn’t want cleaning staff seeing the alcohol. It’s not really unreasonable, it is a Muslim country after all, but it was very different from Hurghada.

Our initial day was a lot of driving, but we had plenty of room in our minibus and plenty of refreshment stops. The first major stop en route was at El Alamein, where there is a military museum on the battle at El Alamein, a decisive point in WW2, of which Churchill commented that before then all battles had been lost and after that point, all battles were won. There was a huge peace sculpture outside, videos and exhibits inside, and then outside there were life-size models of tanks and aeroplanes, along with large embossed plaques depicting the battles. Apparently, the museum had recently been refurbished, so it was all spotless and a credit to Egypt. There were quite a few Egyptians looking around as well.

A little further down the road, we visited the cemetery dedicated to all those who had lost their lives during WW2. It was remarkable for being in pristine condition and it was a sobering reminder of all the young people who died before they’d even had a chance to live, all for giving us the privilege of living the lives we’re able to lead today.

We continued our journey and arrived at Marsa Matrouh at around 4pm. We visited Cleopatra Beach where quite a few Egyptian films have been made. The coastline was beautiful with clear water, interesting rock formations, and jagged coastline. After that, it was sunset and so we checked into our hotel and then dined at a local restaurant in our own separate section. We had the choice of mixed grill or chicken and had all the traditional Egyptian accompaniments (tahini, hummous, bread) by the bucket load.

The next day we set off early (by now this was the fourth consecutive early morning for me including Luxor!) to go to Siwa. However, astonishingly (for Egypt), we got held up by fog. We couldn’t see in front of us at all. The police stopped all traffic from going any further and so we had to wait in the minibus by the wayside. Eventually, a police car came through to let us know that the fog cleared further up the road, and the traffic started moving slowly again.

However, before we knew it, the truck in front of us crashed into a car in front, so we had to stop yet again. Nobody was hurt. Finally, we were able to start our journey once more. We stopped at a roadside café for a refreshment stop and all the drivers there were curious to know if we’d seen the accident. Our driver became the hero of the day as he was able to explain that we’d been right there and had seen everything first hand. It made the other drivers’ day. The Egyptians love a bit of gossip.

We finally arrived in Siwa in the early afternoon, and I’ll cover those two days in the next blog.

(PS. Merry Christmas everyone, if you celebrate, and thanks for reading!)

El Andalous - Aida

Aida in the Backdrop of Hatshepsut's Temple

In my head, my return to Egypt signaled a year of sitting back, relaxing and taking stock of how my finances would last. It’s been a while since I’ve had the luxury of not working and I thought I’d not do much at first and wait until I got a bit bored before I started to plan anything.

However, it turned out that my life had other ideas in store for me.

I was excited to hear that Aida was showing in Luxor with orchestra and singers coming in from abroad to perform it in the setting of Hatshepsut’s temple. Wow. How often in your life do you get to see something like that?

Tickets were expensive (cheapest was 150 USD), but it turned out that this included your return travel to Luxor from Hurghada, a night and breakfast in a 5-star hotel, and transport to the opera and back from the hotel. Suddenly, it didn’t seem quite so bad.

I tried to persuade some friends to come over and see it with me, but I didn’t get anyone taking me up on the idea. In the end, I decided I’d just go on my own, although fortunately, it transpired that Horst and Hilde were also planning on going, so I wasn’t alone after all.

Fox Travel, who were organizing it, at first seemed very efficient. They came to Sahl Hasheesh to collect our payment since for some reason they couldn’t supply an IBAN number for us to transfer money directly. Well, they tried, but it didn’t work as my bank wouldn’t recognize it as a valid code. Nothing is straightforward over here.

However, they came to collect the money and to give us our tickets, so it all went well. Nevertheless, after that, it was much more of a struggle. I emailed them to ask when they’d be picking us up and whether they could give us a full itinerary (eg, time of arrival, time of departure to opera, end of opera, time of departure to return, etc). They said they’d pick us up at 8am (but didn’t say where) and didn’t answer any of the other questions.

We waited at 8am on the day in question at El Andalous, assuming pick up must be from our residence. The bus was a little late, but not too badly so, considering this is Egypt. It was just a small minibus and we picked up other people from Sahl Hasheesh who were also going (Azzurra, Palm Beach, and Ocean Breeze buildings). We were then informed that we would change bus just on the border of Sahl Hasheesh. This was a bit surprising and we assumed we were joining a larger crowd in a larger bus that had come from Hurghada. But no, we transferred to another minibus with a different driver and our guide left us.

At around 2pm, we arrived in Luxor. We were staying in the Steigenberger, which was a wonderful hotel, and a band of men played to us as we arrived and entered the building. There was some kind of confusion over our booking when we arrived and the Steigenberger had to phone the agency to clarify. Consequently, we had to sit round and wait. We still didn’t have an itinerary, so we asked at what time we needed to meet for the bus to take us to Aida, but nobody was able to give us any information.

Eventually, we made it to our lovely rooms, but we still didn’t know what time we were going to be picked up. We all sat round for an hour while the agency tried to find out. The view was lovely and the bar was open, but it was still very frustrating.

In the end, they said we needed to meet at 16:30. By this time, there was only an hour left, so any plans of going out somewhere in Luxor were now scuppered. Horst, Hilde and I had lunch – I was wondering if we’d be given something to eat at the opera, but Horst and Hilde were sceptical (and, it turns out, were right to be so). After this, Mohamed, who used to work in El Andalous but had since become a teacher in Luxor, came to meet us in the hotel, so it was good to see how he was doing and to see photos of his new baby girl.

Soon it was time to change for the performance. We all sat round in our glamorous garments for 30 minutes and then were told that they’d got the time wrong and actually we wouldn’t be picked up until 17:30. Grrrr.

It still seemed quite early to be going to the opera if we weren’t going to be fed, but the journey there took longer than we were expecting. I think they’d laid out a specific route for all buses to the opera to take; every 500m or so there were police along the wayside. The security was amazing.

Once there, there were hundreds of people. We had to queue a bit, but really it wasn’t too bad. The seats were well spaced with plenty of legroom; there was a section for the people who had paid 750USD and who were provided with food and drink. Hatshepsut’s temple was lit up and it was amazing to see it at night in the backdrop of the mountains.

The performance was good, but was hindered by the wind which howled over the speakers. The choreographer was apparently someone famous but controversial in Germany and we’d been promised special light effects using modern technology, but all that happened was that they highlighted Hatshepsut’s temple in different colors and sometimes the mountains, too. The costumes and staging were a bit lacking with the characters mainly coming on stage and singing and not doing much else; the chorus merely stood in the background. I’d been expecting to see them marching down the temple and bringing the ancient setting to life. The orchestra remained largely hidden.

Nevertheless, I don’t regret going. Seeing it in the backdrop of such an iconic monument was incredible and it was hard to believe I was actually there and experiencing it. I can also appreciate that it took a huge amount of organization.

It must have been about midnight when we got back and at this point we still didn’t know what time we were being picked up the next day. In the end, they finally told us it would be 8am. We all complained, asking why we had to leave so early, but they would not budge, claiming that this was what the Opera had specified. Really? Why not benefit from all the extra tourists in Luxor who might spend money if they could stay a few hours longer? It didn’t make sense, but there was nothing we could do.

So, all in all, the organization was lacking, but it was still an amazing experience. And the benefit of leaving early was that by the afternoon I was swimming in the sea again.

El Andalous - Visa Problems

Life's Not Always a Beach!

This is Egypt (TIE), so of course not everything went smoothly. Moving back always starts with a pile of admin to do, not the least being getting a visa. This time, I wanted a year’s visa, since my intent is to live here for most of the year.

I always feel nervous going to the visa office because there are so many tales about the randomness of it all. Anyway, it had to be done, so off I went. Stephen and Kathryn were getting their visas at the same time and they have rented a car, so I was able to go with them rather than having to pay for a taxi. That was a good thing.

The visa system has vastly improved in my absence. Previously, you had to queue to collect a form before you could even start and the queues were disorderly with people pushing in. Actually pushing in is even factored into the process as you keep on having to go away to do things (pay money, get a photocopy, etc) and you are allowed to push back in, although it results in people shouting at you and complaining. That’s how it used to be.

At last, they’ve decided to hand out visa forms as you enter the building and, even better, you get a number and you are called to the window when it’s your turn. I can’t explain how much better this is. They even have an electronic voice in English and a display up announcing each number as it comes up. It is brilliant.

I’d spent the previous evening photocopying the 32 pages of the purchase contract for my flat as that was required for the visa; I’d got my photographs, I’d remembered to bring a pen (or two), I’d sorted out which was the most recent entry visa in my passport (helped by me being able to read Arabic, I’m proud to say!) and also photocopied that and my main passport page. I was fully prepared.

However, when I was called up to the desk, the woman refused to accept my application. She said I needed an extra document (the “tawkil”, which is confusing, because this means “power of attorney” but in terms of your property purchase, it’s a document saying that the property has been paid for and the previous owners have relinquished it). I pointed out that my contract was stamped and stickered, which means that it has gone through court and been approved and registered, but apparently this wasn’t enough. I wasn’t at all sure I had the extra document she demanded; I knew I had one sheet of paper with stamps on it and a load of handwriting on one side, but it didn’t really look like an official document and it was all in Arabic.

Anyway, I had to leave the visa office without even having applied. What a waste of time! I got a taxi back, which also didn’t go too smoothly as the guy didn’t come for a long time and decided afterwards he was my friend and kept on sending me pictures of where he was via WhatsApp.

I dug out the other piece of paper that I had, scanned it, and emailed my lawyer to ask him if he had my tawkil or if what I attached was the tawkil. It turned out that he was on vacation and wouldn’t be back until after my current visa had expired. Help! I asked if he could just take a quick look at the attached document and say if it was the tawkil. He responded it wasn’t; it was the court judgment. I wasn’t too sure if that court judgment was the same as the tawkil required by the visa office. I was confused, but no help was forthcoming.

In the end, there was nothing I could do other than to return to the visa office with the additional piece of paper and hope that another person would not be so stringent or that the piece of paper would be sufficient. This time, I also took my original documents, just in case that would help. On this occasion I was able to get a lift to the visa office from Horst and Hilde who took pity on me in my plight and were in any case going themselves.

I got the same woman serving me again. She recognized me (I don’t know how the Egyptians do it!) and immediately looked for the tawkil among my documents. To my relief, she pounced on the new bit of paper, and nodded that it was the tawkil. Phew. She looked at my original documents and then said that my photocopy wasn’t good enough as although the stickers of the contract were showing, the photocopy hadn’t picked up the stamps. I had to go to their copying counter (which they never used to have when I first came to Egypt) and have it all copied again.

Finally, everything was handed over, I went to the bank in the visa office to pay. I’d got my phone with me so that I could photograph the receipt rather than queue again at the photocopy counter as you have to give the receipt to the person at the visa counter. However, they’d now also improved this and give you two copies, one for you and one for the visa office.

The visa office captain signed my application, which he only has to do for those wishing to stay a year, the lady wrote something on the form and also in a large ledger. I ensured I had my original documents safe and sound and went away happy; we were due to collect our visas the next day.

Once home, I realized that I’d left my mobile phone in the visa office; I’d spent so much time worrying about losing my original contract documents that I’d forgotten to check that I had my phone. I wasn’t too concerned as we were going back to the visa office the next day.

And so we returned the following day to collect our visas. The staff remembered Horst very well. He’s quite memorable in and of himself, but apparently they’d originally thought his name was “Horse” and found this hilarious. The whole hilarity was repeated all over again on his return as they recalled the error and the entire office was laughing.

However, alas, it turned out that my phone was not there. This was a disaster on several levels – it was the first phone I’d actually liked (it was wonderfully thin and had this amazing metallic blue color which was an object of beauty, it had also been easy even for me to set up), I’d just spent 600 LE (which is a lot of money over here!) on the phone package, and it had my Swiss SIM in it that I use for all my banking / credit card identification verification codes.

I was so preoccupied with my phone not being found and all the implications, that I didn’t think to check my visa. When Horst asked me before we got into the car, I looked, and found they had granted me only 6 months and not a year.

After all that! A 6 month visa costs the same as a year’s visa; although I can renew the 6-month visa, it means it costs me twice as much for a year and, worse, I have to go through all this hassle again. With that and my lost phone, it was not a good start to my new start in Egypt!

El Andalous - The Return

El Andalous - Old and New

I’d been so busy in my final week in Switzerland that I hadn’t even gone swimming for an entire week. The weather had been extraordinarily good even though some trees were starting to turn into their autumn colours. All this transpired to make me feel, for the first time, not yet ready to go back to Egypt. I think if I'd have stayed one more week in Switzerland, I would probably have wanted to leave as the weather was just starting to turn as I left and the film festival had just finished. Still, it’s maybe nice to depart with the feeling of wanting to stay.

My flight back was fine and I was picked up at Hurghada airport by ABC taxis with no problem; indeed the fare was very cheap (125 LE – around 6 GPB or 8 CHF). I wondered what my flat would be like, since Ahmed had expressed concern over email that I hadn’t given him enough time to get the flat sorted before I arrived back. I was a bit surprised, but on my return realized that since they were currently renovating the entire building, getting my flat ready also meant repainting my balcony.

I arrived in darkness, so I didn’t have the full effect of arriving and seeing El Andalous in its newly-painted state. My first task was to unpack and, perhaps predictably, this was when I discovered that I’d made a few wrong decisions in my packing prioritization (after all that!).

I decided my curtains wouldn’t really go with the rest of the furniture (so I’ll use them in my Edinburgh flats, I guess), the seat covers that I’d bought for my sofas didn’t really fit properly, although I’m still using them; they just look a bit messy as they’re always coming off. I’d brought back a bedspread as I’ve got a bit fed up with looking at the one I’ve had for over 10 years, but actually it isn’t really usable as it’s too thick for the hot nights over here. That too will have to go over to Edinburgh at some point.

I’d brought over some rice flour with me, but it turned out that Spinney’s now stocks this; I wish I’d brought chickpea flour across with me instead (to make bhajis and falafel) as it’s been difficult to get that and when I found it in my very own local BestWay, it turned out to be very expensive (although I was delighted to find it and felt renewed amazement at just how good that small supermarket is).

I went outside the next morning to have a look at how the painting of El Andalous was progressing; Ahmed caught me looking and asked my opinion, so I gave him the deserved praise he was seeking. He came round to my flat to check that I thought the cleaning had been OK and even got me to turn on my TV to check that my reception had been recovered. As the new manager, he’s doing a great job.

Every time I go to Egypt, I assume that nobody much will be there and it’ll be quiet. And, almost always, to my surprise, it’s a hotbed of social activity. This time when I returned I discovered that Stephen and Kathryn, Horst and Hilde, Jason, Janice and Chris, Karl-Heinz, Adi, Essam, quite a few Ukrainians, and the Russian Abbas family were all already over. Thus, my beach visits were full of catching up with people. But I’m not complaining.

I’d collected my old internet SIM from Nicole to see me through until I went to Spinney’s. Unfortunately, the free bus wasn’t running on the day I wanted to go, but I got a taxi, so it wasn’t much of a problem (just a bit of extra expense). Anyway, it appeared that my usual guy at the kiosk must have left his job as he wasn’t there and I haven’t seen him since, either. Thus, I didn’t get the promised extra special deal on renewal. In fact, there weren’t any special deals at all and I had to renew my bundle without getting two for the price of one. The good thing was that it was all done really quickly as I didn’t have to sign a new contract. It was slightly cheaper than before but maybe that’s because I didn’t need to get a new sim card.

The things I’d managed to forget this time in the intervening period were that Fridays are often busy on the beach due to Egyptians having the day off and also that it’s not easy to ask for things to be done on that day. I’d also forgotten that while I can’t get European / UK breakfast cereal at a reasonable price over here, they do have Nesquick cereal at a good price (no idea why!). I never eat this when I'm in Europe, but over here I have it as a weekend treat and as a change from Spinney’s Cornflakes (which are perfectly OK, but still not as good as Kellogg’s). My breakfasts are important to me.

So, all in all, it was a fairly smooth return to Egypt. I had to ask for one dead mouse to be retrieved from above my kitchen as it was smelling, but everything else was fine!