Alexandria to Siwa Oasis, Egypt - I like milk with my fig newtons...

Founded by Alexander the Great back in the day (330 BC), Alexandria is Egypt's 2nd largest city with a population of 4 million people. To the left is the refreshing Mediterranean Sea.

Busy day on the seawall...

Spent alot of time watching life go by on the seawall. What is that!? A crucifix of cotton candy?! Mmmm...cotton candy...

Hip hop is not dead...It's alive and well in Alexandria...

Fisherman at sunset...

Guarding the bay is the Citadel of Qaitbay which was built from/upon the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria... Yes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

The design of the library is said to imitate a rising sun. Other interpretations describe it as a discus impacting the ground (I think the LP says that). Regardless, the building is the definition of an anachronism.

Founder of Alex. He never lived to see the completion of the original library.

Nice, eh. The library is huge and practically empty. It relies heavily on donations to stock it's collection...there are some sources that say at the current funding rates, the library won't hit capacity for another 80 years...

Hucksters selling clothes at the local market...

Street scene. I found that Alexandrians were much more approachable than Cairenes...

Boy #1

Boys #1

Don't know why these dudes were pinching this old lady's face. Suffice to say, it looked like a gesture of affection...

Boy #3


Dude on the right smoking sheesa using a water pipe. Very popular activity amongst men...

Goats in the City...

Nice Pooh phone, dude... Did I mention Egyptians are crazy about the beautiful game?

Finally out of Cairo. Since the Red Pyramid, someone stole my F30 camera in Cairo - suitably and quite ironically in a Kushari eatery. I miss my F30.

On the last night in Cairo, a bunch of us staying at the Hostel went on a felluca ride on the Nile. Very relaxing. Cairo's kind of beautiful at night. We only rounded up a bunch of guys for the cruise. What's with that? Anyway, we loaded up on alcoholic beverages at the neighbourhood liquor store for the boat [Ed. Notes: Yes, there are such establishments in Islamic Egypt. For your own privacy and security they give out black opaque plastic bags]. I think the Norwegian got a wee bit enebriated by the end. [Ed. Notes: The Norwegian was an interesting fellow. I suspect he was in his 40s. Lived a longtime in Japan as a model. Fluent in Japanese. Now, he lived at the Dahab hotel and running an international consulting business that advises foreign governments on procuring contracts and negotiating fishing rights. He tried to hire me to act as a go between his company and the Canadian government... I'm not kidding.]

Leaving Cairo and the Dahab was difficult. I wasted a lot of time there and met a lot of interesting people while wasting away the time. I'm sure I'll be back.

At the Hostel I met Jason, a guy from Sheffield, UK. He was here on holidays and was going my way. So, we joined forces. He's of Jamaican descent. The locals think he's Egyptian and constantly approached him using Arabic. Should be fun. He might be able to get us the local price... Good things come to those that wait...

So, the next morning we took off to Alexandria on the train. "Alex" was an interesting town. It's like a mini Cairo (yet having a population of 4 million) but less hectic. I suppose the sea had a mellowing effect (eg. Vancouver, BC). The Mediterranean Sea was beautiful... First thing I noticed was the cool sea breeze. Nice contrast to the stiffling heat of Cairo.

The wasn't much to see in Alex. The Great Library of Alex burned down awhile ago (ok millenia ago) but I went to see it's ultra-modern, ultra-vogue replacement, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It was huge but the shelves were for the most part empty, carrying 500,000 volumes out of a capacity of 8 million. Still though, the Egyptians seemed very proud of this place.

It took a long time to find, but we managed to see the famous Catacombs - actually kind of a ripoff. I wished they had left human skeletal remains lying about. What's a catacomb without human skeletons...? They had some bones displayed in a glass case... By looking at the teeth, they may have belonged to a ruminant of some sort though...

Alex wasn't really about tourist sites though. The action in town was found in the side streets with food stalls, merchants, and just the normal peeps going about their normal lives. We met a Korean guy outside the Catacombs. We told him the admission wasn't worth it. So, we joined him for an afternoon of people photography.


View Larger Map

Map marks the location of the Union Hotel. Very nice hotel... very clean soft beds (bedsheets were to die for). Each room has it's own balcony. [Ed. note: keep your balcony doors locked whenever you are sleeping or out taking in the sites]. Excellent location. Stone's throw away from the sea. TV in the dining room. Shared bathrooms or self contained rooms. All for a paltry 45 LE or $8 USD per night per single (shared bathroom). Treat yourself to a splurge today!!

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Left Alex after a couple of days for Siwa, an oasis town located on the western frontier of Egypt. The coastal highway to Marsa Matruh was pretty stark. All desert, only to be bounded to the north by the azure waters of the Mediterranean. The long stretches of bleakness were broken by the occasional huge, ugly, abandoned seaside resort beckoning to hordes of heat exhausted Cairenes on summer holidays.

After Marsa Matruh, the bus took a left and headed unabatedly towards the heart of the Sahara.

8.5 hours and we were relaxing in the middle of the Sahara under a stand of fig trees. Glorious.

Out of Canuckistan: A travel blog, May 31/07
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Buy Bubba a Beer Now!

sometimes when we're out of touch...

alexandria's corniche on the Mediterranean sea. i guess this kind of marks the end of the trip...

wacky egyptians hamming it up at the market.

well, i'm back in cairo. there's a price to pay though. bright (well, as bright as it gets here with the smog), sunny and 40 C. since the last posting , i've been to alexandria and the extremely isolated oasis of siwa in the great sand sea close to the libyan border.

alexandria's sort of like a mini cairo; however, the people are much more relaxed. founded by the one, the only alexander the great, it was famous for the great liberry back in the day. until it was torched and razed to the ground. i went to see the new replacement liberry. i must say it didn't have much of a collection yet. it could fit 8 million books but currently held only a half million. lot's of empty, dusty shelves. alexandria was also famous for having one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. well, it was dismantled and the pieces were used to construct a fort.

perhaps what alexandria is most noted for (well, in my books) are it's people. really friendly folks. i think the lack of tourists or reduced numbers has to do with some of the friendliness.

next, i headed deep into the western desert to the oasis of siwa. i've never been to an oasis before. the landscape prior to arriving was horrifically bleak. i mean nothing. flat for as far as the eye could see. nary a soul. hot as hell. then the bus i was on dipped into a shallow depression, and voila, we were in a patch of a date palms, surrounded by pools of cool clear water! soon thereafter, we were inundated by donkey carts, the preferred mode of siwan transport, at the bus station. funny how things work out in the end.

not much to see in siwa. the chic thing to do is rent a bike and visit some of the exquisite springs in the outskirts of town. you can escape the oppressive heat of the day by taking a refreshing


this is my new bud, robbie, from amerika taking the plunge into "cleopatra" spring.

dip in the coolish waters. very nice. alternatively, you can do nothin' and sit on your butt all day reading a book or watching siwan life go by. ain't that fun, eh? plus, it's quiet as hell. Siwa's an anomaly in egypt that's for sure.


nice sunset, eh? if you have yo tv screens adjusted correctly, you can see a small sample of Siwa's 70 thousand date trees in the foreground.

siwa's pretty conservative in terms of adherence to tradition and islam. the women are covered from head to toe in public - even in the oppressive heat. as my friend, sal, would say, the full ninja suit. the whole nine yards. they can walk around, but they can't drive the donkey carts.

however, traditions are a changing, just as the shifting sands of the surrounding desert. i had this conversation with the hotel manager, mano:

bubba: so, mano are you married? (one of my favourite questions).
mano: no.
bubba: (feigning shock and dismay) why not!
mano: i'm just 24.
bubba: that's really old. (well, relatively old)...
mano: i need money to get married...
bubba: ha! how are you going to meet your wife?
mano: my folks are going to set me up.
bubba: then?
mano: then we are going to meet...
bubba: ...and go on a date?
mano: ha! no.
bubba: play cards?
mano: no. maybe watch tv (with her parents present of course). if the parties are interested, her family will talk it over (family meaning parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.). if they like me, we'll get engaged.
bubba: when would that happen?
mano: could be next day or maybe ten years... hopefully, not ten years.
bubba: why not 10 years?
mano: very expensive.
bubba: how do you know if she's the right one?
mano: if her family is good then everything is good...
bubba: what about the woman?
mano: she doesn't matter. just as long as the family is good.
bubba: when are finally going to get married?
mano: before i'm, say, 30.
bubba: that's quite advanced in age. hmmm...what about your friends?
mano: well, 99 percent of them are married. i don't get to see them much.
bubba: they just disappeared?
mano: yep. i like my freedom.

ed notes:

1) i've been sick for the past few days. that certainly put a wrench into my plans of chillin' in dahab (capital of western decadence by the red sea - i'm sure it drives the islamists crazy). it's been pretty rough. high grade fever, head eck, muscle and joint eck, and to top it off, you guessed it, explosive diarrhea. dunno what it is. any doctors out there? anywho, i'm resting for next couple of days.

2) while i was bedridden, the ducks won the cup. that kind of sucked...