Having a fantastic time...

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I've only just realised how long it's been since I've updated, I haven't covered Alexandria or the desert safari, let only Dahab and the Red Sea!

So, I am going to make this update probably in dribs and drabs or it will all take far too long a post. First - the really bad news. My camera is broken, in a serious way 😞 It got dropped in Luxor, then taken away for fixing in Cairo for over 3 weeks before it was returned to us with a "sorry we can't fix it". I emailed Kodak UK and they said, basically, "It'll cost 90 quid to fix it or you can buy a new camera." We are still checking out our options but it means we are very much lacking the fantastic pictures we should have been taking.

So. Alexandria then.

I loved Alexandria - it was fantastic. What struck me most about it was how much like Hastings it is - not in a bad way you understand, it's kind of what I think Hastings was supposed to be. It has a gorgeous coast and promenade and most of the buildings, especially along the seafront, are grandiose and beautiful Victorian hotels and homes converted into hotels. Fort Qaitbey, built on the site of the ancient Pharos lighthouse (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world) was so utterly beautiful I could have cried. When I am stupendously rich I shall bribe and beg the Egyptian government to please let me reside there, just for two weeks a year or something, really I am not fussy. It's so quiet and the wind is caught by the windows so very peacefully, it's just amazing. Also, Alexandria is very different from the rest of Egypt. What with it's location near to Europe and it's strong colonial history it's actually more European than North African, with plus sides (hardly any hawkers or touts) and down sides (much, much more expensive). But I loved it. I loved the chinks and fragments of a much older Ptolemaic Egypt that can be grasped in a handful of sites - like Pompey's Pillar and the sister library to the ancient Great Library, as well as the Roman amphitheatre and villa remains and the fantastic catacombs of Kom-el-Shouqafa, which mixed Ancient Egyptian symbolism with the new Greek/Ptolemaic customs (We hired a guide, and he was very good, though I've forgotten his name - but we have his card, so we can post the details up at some point). Me and Owen wandered about the sister library's tunnels looking (mostly in jest) for secret doors leading to a vast secret treasure trove of ancient learning and culture. I above all loved the university city feel and the fantastic, worshipful, wonderful Library of Alexandria (the modern version, alas) which as book-lovers...well, we just stood and stared, our hearts brimming fit to burst. Ok, there are probably bigger libraries and better libraries but it was still amazing. Educated, intellectual and enlightened...Alexandria. I loved the museum in the library especially and after absorbing so much of Alexandria's history we went outside and stared at the lost part of the harbour where Cleopatra's Needle once stood (before we British nicked it) and the Ptolemaic palaces, lost in wonder. I met a mechanical engineering student who was making money out of showing people around in his spare time, and while yes, technically he was a tourist tout, in practice he was just another student like me, and nice and chatty in a perfectly ordinary way. We talked about my degree (Physics) and his studies, and it was all just relaxed and normal. (We didn't go on a tour with him in the end, but only because he'd switched his mobile off for lectures and we couldn't get through to him. He did phone the hotel but only at about 10pm when we had a really early morning train the next day, which is a pity because I'd have liked to go to an Egyptian wedding!)

After Alexandria we went back via Cairo and then on to Bawiti, which is an oasis town in the Sahara desert, by Bahariyya Oasis. We were quite literally mobbed when we got off the bus, by a number of excitable young men who wanted us to come to their hotel or camp. Eventually we settled on the Eden Garden camp, which was actually quite lovely. There was a big double bed with a pink mosquito net canopy and after agreeing on and organising a desert safari we set off.

The desert was amazing. We visited both the Black and the White deserts, but I've run out of steam and it's getting late, so more later.

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