It was ironically perfect timing. We were about halfway between Marsa and Siwa, and the fan belt of our bus broke, so we absolutely couldn’t go anywhere. We all sat on the bus for a little bit, to enjoy the last bits of air conditioning, but after like, 30 seconds, the bus turned from salvation from the sun to a hotbox. It got so hot on that bus so quickly that we all just ended up wandering around outside, taking lots of “omgwe’restuckinthedesert” pictures and joking around while the grown ups loitered around the back of the bus to try and make it look like they were doing something. After a while, we all ended up sitting on the side of the road, in the shade of the bus and just really joking about what was going on. 
Our police escort showed up a bit later, and their plan was pretty entertaining. Their idea was to just hijack any vehicle that passes by and redirect it to Siwa and our hotel with all of our baggage. It was pretty funny at first, but then when we realized they were serious, it wasn’t so funny anymore. Sure, it would get us out of the desert, but I would rather sit in the middle of nowhere for a few more hours to wait for our own transportation than play into the stereotype of the aggressive Americans who take whatever they want, no matter what effect it has on others. Thankfully, the first and only bus that was stopped was full to max capacity with men, and we definitely weren't getting on that. After a little longer, two minibuses showed up for us [I think from Alexandria], and we packed all 26 of us, along with all of our bags onto them and raced to Siwa. I swear, They couldn't have been going less than 120km/h. We made the 105 leftover kilometers to Siwa in less than 90 minutes, and it looked like the town that the world forgot. As we got further in, we began to see people, but they were all men. There was not a single woman to be seen. We were told that it was a pretty conservative place, but this seemed a little ridiculous to me.
We got to our hotel, which was down this tiny little alleyway past a few abandoned-looking buildings, and all pretty much fell into the chairs in reception. Before dispersing to our rooms, we agreed to meet later on for a "walking tour" of the area. Joyce and I decided to watch The Darjeeling Limited, instead of going swimming, and both ended up asleep. We got up just in time for the tour. I don't really know how you can call our walk a tour because there isn't much in town to see, besides men and donkeys. We took a lap around the town, and it took less than ten minutes before we climbed up this hill where people used to live. It was all houses carved out of the hill and we thought no one was there, but it turned out that we could see down into a home, and there was a family there, looking up at us. It was definitely strange. On the way back down, we cleaned out a small shop of their bottled-water supply and headed back to the hotel.Breakfast at Siwa Safari Paradise is pretty nauseating, not gonna lie. I think anything after Flamenco is pretty subpar. I stuck to the bread, and some hardboiled eggs, since those seem to be pretty consistently clutch. Our first stop of the day was at the Mountain of the Dead. It's [seemingly] the highest point in town, and it's the sight of hundreds of tombs which have already been excavated.
It was pretty cool to stand at the top and look around to see a forest of palm trees and even water in the distance, surrounded by a sea of desert. We spent a little bit of time listening to some history about the city and enjoying the cool breeze before walking down the side of the mountain. We left the mountain, admiring the donkeys on the way down, and got back on the bus to go to Cleopatra's well. We were supposed to take donkey carts to the well, but the police escort wanted us all to stay together, so that didn't happen. I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't think it was what I saw. It was this big, circular pool, enclosed in a mud-brick-looking wall, and a thick green foam around the edges. We just kind of stood around, looking at each other for a bit, and finally someone jumped in first, and then it was a free-for-all. 
I think maybe 7 or 8 people jumped right in and started swimming with a young boy who was already there. Most of us didn't swim, mostly because we didn't want to be in wet clothes for however long we were going to be out for, so we hovered around the pool taking pictures and laughing at the mysterious white cloud in the water. After about 10 minutes, we piled back on the bus with a bunch of people who looked like they just peed their pants, and I thought we were just going back to the hotel, but we stopped at two other sites in between. Both were ruins of ancient temples, neither were very memorable.We got back into town, and had a few hours to kill before the desert trek later on, so a few of us went and had lunch at a place called Abduh's, which is only so appropriate. The food was really good, but they forgot Bridget's, so she got it to go and we walked back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped in this little shop across the path from our hotel, and looked around for a bit while the guy who owned it, I'm assuming, invited us for tea and kept saying things like "maybe this one". I bought a gorgeous veil, and got a free postcard. The guy was really nice and if we didn't have the trek, we would've gone to have tea with him. Joyce and I both passed out and slept all the way through the down-time. It was much-needed with all the traveling that we've been doing. Joyce and I did come into custody of a new pet spider who we named Charlie. We kept him under a cup on our fridge with some granola in it.
At 4, we all met and split into 6 Toyota 4Runners for our evening desert trek with the Bedouins. I could tell as soon as we took off that the car I got stuck in wasn't doing very well. It fell behind immediately, and was driving really slowly the entire time. I was kind of annoyed, to be totally honest. I was all ready to be bouncing around and speeding over dunes and everything, yet this car could barely keep up with the others on the road. It was thoroughly disappointing. I tried to see past it, and before I knew it, we were stopping. There was a huge dune overlooking a kind of sand basin.
We stopped to climb it, and take 12307235897234 pictures, and then got back in the cars to go to the oasis. That was probably one of the most amazing experiences in my lifetime. As we drove up to it, all we could see was a calm body of water surrounded by green in the heart of the Western Sahara. It was incredible. We could hardly wait to get out of the car before we were getting rid of our clothes and running right in. It was soooooo refreshing. It wasn't too cold, but it wasn't warm, and it wasn't clear, but you could tell that it was clean, fresh water. We all swam all the way out to the other end and back to sit and relax on the muddy/sandy bottom where it was shallow enough. It was fantastic to be sitting in water staring at the desert around you. We stayed there for much less time than I would've liked, but we did have other things planned. We all ate a quick snack from the hotel [some weird kind of chicken sandwich], got dressed, and got back in our cars. We started driving again, and all of a sudden, something made a really ugly sound and smoke started pouring out of the hood.
That was comforting. NOT. All the other trucks were speeding off in the distance, and there we were, stopped, with our driver chest deep under the hood and no idea what the hell was wrong. After a few minutes of wandering in circles and wondering if anyone noticed we were gone, two empty cars came back, fiddled with the car a little bit and then told us to get back in. I was a little skeptical. No, screw that. I was REALLY skeptical. I did not want to get back in that car when there were two other perfectly healthy ones right there. They assured us everything was fine, so we got back in and followed them to where the other cars were. Everyone was sitting in this tiny hot spring, waiting for our car. We had about 30 seconds to enjoy it, and then we left again. It wasn't nearly as refreshing as the oasis just because it was a HOT spring, but nice nonetheless.Our next stop was what used to be ocean floor. The ground was rich with all kinds of seashells and fossils and all of us spent the first few minutes bent over at the waist trying to dig them out. After that, we ran in four different directions to climb various rock formations.
We all started running toward this one huge mountain when Abduh whistled, and we were summoned back for sandboarding. We drove to a different spot and got out to stand on the edge of a 'uge drop off. We were all pretty excited for the sandboarding. The Bedouins hopped into the trunks of the trucks and came out with these long, whitewashed, plywood boards with two burlap straps nailed into them, and gestured to get going. We were all a little taken aback, but went with it. Most people [myself included] fell before they got very far, and I managed to re-anger my tailbone, but a couple of people made it all the way down. 
It was hard with the boards needing to be sanded after every trip and not having the best construction to begin with, but we made the best of it and still had an awesome time. We each went once or twice and then sat down for tea at sunset. The sky turned the most gorgeous shades of pink and blue as the sun neared the horizon and it happened so quickly that a few people nearly missed it. My camera survived the entire trip up until this point. I left it in the truck for sandboarding and just before sunset, I took it out to take some pictures, and it was fine until later that night when it was giving me a lens error and wouldn't stay on for more than half a second. 
On the way out of the desert, I switched cars and rode with April, Asha and Andrew, and I'm glad I did. This car actually had the engine capacity to go more than 40km/h and the driver was a lil مجنون, if you catch my drift. It was more fun, though, even if it was only a ten-minute ride back. Instead of going straight to dinner, a bunch of us just jumped right into the pool/spring at the hotel to try and de-sand ourselves.It got so windy at sunset that it was absolutely everywhere. It was nice. We ended up playing some Marco Polo, and swinging off of palm tree branches, which turned out to be a bad idea, and relaxing. I went to bed pretty early to be ready for the drive back to Marsah. I was so excited to get back to the beach.The drive wasn't bad at all. I slept through most of it, and we made it back without a hitch, and after exploring our hideous bathroom a bit, Joyce and I spent a good four hours on the beach, swimming and tanning and napping. It was glorious. We all met for shisha in daylight, which was strange because it's usually a strictly-after-dark activity, but it was still good times. I ended up staying after everyone else had left with Pat, Oscar and Ted and got some good quality time in with the boys. We went back to the hotel around 7, in time for dinner, and I spent the rest of the night working on this baby. Tomorrow is back to Cairo for the night, and then we leave at around 7am for our flight to Abu Dhabi. I'm kind of excited, but kind of not. We know little to nothing about the whole thing and that makes me unhappy, and we're going to be scheduled at all hours of the day, which is also unhappiness-inducing, but we're staying in a bangin' hotel fo' free, so that makes up for a big part of it. It has some potential.
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