Siwa Oasis

Nothing exciting happens in Siwa. But that's a large part of the charm. A massive oasis in the middle of the Western Desert, it's an odd place. The inhabitants are Berbers, not Egyptians, and are far friendlier and more helpful (without the requests for Baksheesh) than the 'mainlanders' (my term, not the Berbers').

There's an abundance of water here - I write sitting in the shade around a spring fed swimming pool - yet there are sand dunes and rocky desert on the horizon all around. We, in the footsteps of Alexander, visited the Oracle (but did not find confirmation that we were, like him, the sons of Zeus) and the totally ruined temple of Amun.

To see photos of Siwa, take a look at the Siwa Oasis set on my flickr site.