Sights and Swimming at the Oasis

Trip Start Jul 07, 2011
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Trip End Jul 31, 2012


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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Not that I can sleep past 7am these days, we had the opportunity to sleep in this morning as we weren't heading out until around 10:30am. Our guide had borrowed bikes from the hotel to get us around town faster. They weren't great bikes, but they did the job for the most part. At least the majority of ours did...Chris managed to have a flat tire within the first 20 minutes of us getting around. Our first stop this morning was the Mountain of the Dead. This giant hill was essentially used as burial grounds for a variety of nobles and their families during the reign of the Ptolemies and Romans. While there are clearly tombs all over the place, we were only allowed into 4 of them. They are somewhat preserved, but in a lot of cases, it was clear that the artwork was sloppy or that they weren't finished. It was a little creepy wandering around the mountain as we kept seeing bones lying all over the place that were definitely human! Yuck!
We biked over to the Temple of the Oracle next. The story goes that when Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt in 322 BCE, he needed to seek out the oracle to determine whether or not he was supposed to rule Egypt. Obviously the oracle deemed his suitable for the job, but this was the place where that happened. Unfortunately, there isn't much left there and the place is pretty much in ruins. I'm not even sure how much restoration they could do on the place. Either way, it was still a really cool piece of history to see. We also stopped at an old temple dedicated to Amun, but that one was really in ruins. There was nothing to see there.
Our last stop for the day was the hot springs just outside of Siwa. It was a big open space that was significantly cleaner than the other springs we had visited. There were tons of local kids goofing around and playing in the springs. After biking back to Siwa Town, we had the afternoon off to relax and do some shopping. It's a really cute little town that I enjoyed being in.
We went out for a nice dinner tonight on a rooftop restaurant that overlooked the city. Chris and two other people in our trip decided to sample the camel stew as part of their dinner. It didn't go over that well with everyone.
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