If you happen to find yourself in Cairo, and you happen to have 4-5 days of free time, I would suggest you attempt a trip to Siwa. Despite the daunting 10 hour bus ride, it will most certainly be worth your time. Siwa is a desert oasis near the Libyan border. Suffice to say, it has everything you could want in a desert oasis: hot springs, cold springs, a salt water lake, fresh dates, and spring water. It was truly three days that I won’t soon forget. Siwan culture is also something of an anomaly to the Egyptian culture I have come to know. First, they speak Berber instead of Arabic. Second, once the women are married, they are not allowed out of their homes unless they receive permission from their husbands. Third, if you talk to a woman on the street your legs will most likely be broken by her family. One quick highlight from the trip. We had the opportunity to take ‘safari’ into the desert and stay the night at a ‘Bedouin camp’. After ramping over sand dunes in a jeep that should have been retired long ago, we settled into our Bedouin camp beneath the vastness of the stars. As we lay beneath the stars we heard music quietly being played from a nearby jeep. All of sudden, the music got a lot louder and Enrique Iglesias: ‘Hero’, was blasting from the speakers. With no words spoken between us, five of us guys jumped up, stripped down naked, and took off running into the desert. I have never felt freer. And in the pale moonlight, six white American asses have never looked more…well, pale.
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