Back to the urban jungle from the desert

After a couple nights in Alexandria, we’re back in this little burg of Cairo on the Nile. Three more nights here, and we’re off to Istanbul. Doner kebab, here I come!

From Luxor we set off to the oases of the Western Desert. We stayed in Dakhla before camping a very cold night in the White Desert, and continued on the next day to Bawiti through the Black Desert. It was then a long drive over a not-always-quite-there road/desert sands to the lovely oasis of Siwa, with its tombs and temples at the far western limit of ancient Egyptian influence. The 4x4 safari vehicles we were in were pretty old, and the drivers didn’t seem to have issue flinging us about (without seat belts) driving at U.S. highway speeds on pitching sand and gravel. It was nice to arrive intact, though thoroughly permeated with dust. On the long drive from Siwa to Alex, we stopped and saw the Commonwealth cemetery for soldiers killed in and around the battle of El Alamein in World War 2.

Alexandria was a reintroduction to a much more frenetic, urban environment before the whole enchilada of such in Cairo. New Year’s was pretty tame in Alex, since the locals follow a different calendar than us westerners. Somehow I managed to be out of the U.S. for the entire calendar year of 2010, which I really only missed achieving by a few hours back in 2008.

Photos will follow as I get the opportunity.

“Cairo…city of the living.”
~Sallah, Raiders of the Lost Ark