Siwa

After hanging out on the beach and stopping to get lunch, the bus started on our journey to Siwa. I woke up to the bus being stopped and I looked out both windows only to see desert in all directions. The air smelled really gross, like a mix of burning tires and I don't know what else. Turns out our fan belt broke! GREAT! So turned out we would be stuck in the desert for a couple hours until we could get a new fan belt or until other vans could come for us.

We kept ourselves entertained and hydrated and eventually two vans came from Siwa and picked us up. After an hour long drive we finally arrived.

Once we were given our rooms, Molly and I put our stuff away and headed for the pool that was apparently fed by a natural spring. It was very refreshing after the long sweaty day. Once we got dried off we ate dinner and took a walk around the town. The walk ended up being pretty short because the town was very small. Walking around town we could all see a drastic difference in the lifestyle here. The town is much more conservative and we were able to see women completely veiled without even eye holes. Personally, I found this a bit creepy but who am I to judge. After the tour we stocked up on water and snacks and called it a night.

The next morning we had breakfast and left to climb the Mountain of Death, where you can find hundreds of tombs were people were once buried. There was a beautiful view from the top of the mountain and our tour guide was really great. After snapping tons of pictures we left to see Cleopatra's well which is just a huge pool of water in the middle of this street. I felt very uncomfortable taking my clothes off and jumping in the well in my bikini so I just watched instead. I got some awesome action shots of everyone.

After we stopped at the Temple of Umm Ubayda and the Temple of the Oracle. The Temple of Umm Ubayda wasn't much more than rocks because it had been destroyed but the Temple of the Oracle was really cool and it had another amazing view of Siwa. Alexander the Great visited the temple apparently which was also pretty cool.

Once back to the hotel, we did some relaxing before meeting up at 4pm to go on our DESERT TREK!! There were six 4X4 land cruisers waiting for us outside the hotel. We hopped in and didn't even know what to expect.

It was AWESOME! We went over sand dunes like the car was a rollercoaster. We stopped in several places to take pictures of the desert and then drove up to the Siwa Oasis which was absolutely amazing. I can't believe that there could be a pool of water in the desert like this. It boggles my mind! But it was definitely refreshing. We ate some sandwiches and continued on our journey over to the hot spring located in the desert. This was nuts too! I never would have expected to find a hot spring in the desert, and even though it was scorching hot it was very refreshing as well.

Lastly we stopped at a huge sand dune where we were going sand boarding! I must admit I was a little nervous to stick my feet onto this piece of wood and slide down the sand but it was great! Granted the walk back up the sand dune was torture, everything else was awesome. I took so many pictures and videos of everyone. Then we had some tea and enjoyed the sunset in the desert. Absolutely amazing experience!

Then my camera died :(

Everyone got back in their cars and headed to the hotel to dump all of the sand out of every part of their body.

I can't even describe how great this day was. It was perfect!