Aimless wanderings in the Egyptian heartland. Part Three- The road to Baharaiyya.
When I first landed in Cairo… and from that point onwards, I have been hearing about Siwa Baharaiyya Road and how it is the last frontier to be conquered in Egypt. Well. May be the second last… for I consider the Great Sand Sea to be the last. And from that point onwards, I wanted to conquer it.
Siwa and Baharaiyya are very close to each other… and yet there is no direct road connecting these places… and though I have been hearing that the government will soon be building a road from Siwa to Baharaiyya… none has cropped in the last two years.
However, there is an old road connecting the two places. It is badly worn out and at points… it is non-existent. Some desert buffs take their four wheels and try doing that road. Some go from Siwa to Baharaiyya and some other way round… but when I was in Farafra Oasis last time around, I was told that it is much safer and easier to do it from Siwa to Baharaiyya… and the reason is that Siwa is at an altitude compared to Baharaiyya… this makes it easier for the vehicle to negotiate its way around.
When I started my Great Egyptian Circuit… I had a firm resolve to this route… howsoever expensive it turns out to be… I was told that it might not be very difficult to get a vehicle from Siwa for this trip and that everyday one vehicle or the other tends to go there. The trip seemed possible and plausible.
As soon as we arrived in Siwa, we enquired about this possibility… we realized that one needs to find at least 4 people for the trip otherwise the price of going to Baharaiyya is quite steep. Most of the people who take this circuit come with a ready-made group and therefore gate-crashing into them is not an option. One, it was a mistake that I did not come to Siwa with a ready made group.
Having said that, there is still a possibility of finding some similar wandering souls who would like to do this circuit… but it is not that easy… Siwa has a lot of hotels and contacting some similar people is hell of a task. Therefore it is best left to the Tour Operators… they collect the names of individuals planning to go to Baharaiyya from different hotels… patch up a group and organize the trip. This generally works fine, but in our case… it didn’t. We contact almost all operators in the town, but no one had any person willing to go to Baharaiyya. Two, Luck just didn’t favour us… a day ago there were two groups who went to Baharaiyya… today there wasn’t even one.
Even if one finds a tour operator… and some like minded people, there a few other hitches. Remember all the groups leave only in morning so that they reach Baharaiyya well before the sunset… this is for the safety of the travelers… and not only that any party that goes for the trip must register itself in advance with the tourist police (it’s a simple procedure, but a bottleneck nevertheless). And the Tourist Police office is closed on a Friday. So even if we have had found a group… we couldn’t have register ourselves in a tourist office and therefore would had to wait for one more day to start our journey. Three, never arrive in Siwa on a Friday for a trip to Baharaiyya… in fact, I gathered that Thursday is the best day to find tours going to Baharaiyya… so the best day to arrive in Siwa is Wednesday.
Therefore we waited the Friday to get over… on the first day we merely toured around in Siwa with Suleiman… after seeing the Gebel Maut, Temple of Oracle and Temple of Amun… and thereafter we went to the Cleopatra Spring.
Cleopatra Spring is a nice place… a natural spring with lukewarm and clean water… it is a wonderful place to take a dip and though I do not know how to swim, properly… I just took out my life jacket and took a dip in the spring. It was a wonderful experience. Juno, who is mortally afraid of water… just waited for me, outside. He started talking to two French women who were also visiting the spring… we gave them lift in our Donkey Carts till the city square.
In the night we went to the Old Shali… Old Siwis used to live in fortified beehive like villages to protect themselves from desert dacoits. With time, however, this custom changed and the old bee-hive like townships gave way to brick and mortar. Today the old dwellings of Siwa lie unattended and unpopulated… visiting them gives you an insight into the life and times of Old Siwis. But the best time to visit them is the hours of dusk… when the old dilapidated dwellings create a magic… of fear, hope and timelessness. It is a must to experience, I remember even the last time when I went to Siwa… I roamed in the solitude of Old Shali all by myself.
The next day, we straight away went to the Tourist Police office… the idea was to get hold of any group that is coming for registration and gate-crash into them… however luck just deserted us. No group came for registration. We lost all hopes of doing this trip and decided to re-trace our steps back to Marsa Matrouh. From there, we decided that we will either go to Alexandria and try making it to Port Said or take a bus to Sollum and spend a night over there. And that would be decided by the very first connecting bus that we get in Marsa Matrouh.
In the process of trying to find our way to Baharaiyya, we definitely became wiser. And now I can suggest a few pointers for individuals who are trying to do this circuit.
One, try to find a group beforehand. Two, if that is difficult… arrive in Siwa on a Tuesday or a Wednesday… it is easier to find a group on these days. Three, sound out all the possible tour operators that you want to go to Baharaiyya… that helps. Four, go and meet people at the Tourist Police Office… and tell them that you desperately want to go to Baharaiyya… they may help, offer them a pack of cigarette assuring them that they will have a nice Baksheesh if they are able to arrange the trip for you.
With a very heavy heart we left Siwa… I bid adieu to my plans of doing a Great Egyptian Circuit… but as I had said- Circuit is just a state of mind, a construct. More important is the experience… in the process of trying our way to Baharaiyya, we met a lot of people… we interacted a lot… it was definitely a highlight of the trip, as important as the Siwa-Baharaiyya desert trip, which was not to be.
Siwa and Baharaiyya are very close to each other… and yet there is no direct road connecting these places… and though I have been hearing that the government will soon be building a road from Siwa to Baharaiyya… none has cropped in the last two years.
However, there is an old road connecting the two places. It is badly worn out and at points… it is non-existent. Some desert buffs take their four wheels and try doing that road. Some go from Siwa to Baharaiyya and some other way round… but when I was in Farafra Oasis last time around, I was told that it is much safer and easier to do it from Siwa to Baharaiyya… and the reason is that Siwa is at an altitude compared to Baharaiyya… this makes it easier for the vehicle to negotiate its way around.
When I started my Great Egyptian Circuit… I had a firm resolve to this route… howsoever expensive it turns out to be… I was told that it might not be very difficult to get a vehicle from Siwa for this trip and that everyday one vehicle or the other tends to go there. The trip seemed possible and plausible.
As soon as we arrived in Siwa, we enquired about this possibility… we realized that one needs to find at least 4 people for the trip otherwise the price of going to Baharaiyya is quite steep. Most of the people who take this circuit come with a ready-made group and therefore gate-crashing into them is not an option. One, it was a mistake that I did not come to Siwa with a ready made group.
Having said that, there is still a possibility of finding some similar wandering souls who would like to do this circuit… but it is not that easy… Siwa has a lot of hotels and contacting some similar people is hell of a task. Therefore it is best left to the Tour Operators… they collect the names of individuals planning to go to Baharaiyya from different hotels… patch up a group and organize the trip. This generally works fine, but in our case… it didn’t. We contact almost all operators in the town, but no one had any person willing to go to Baharaiyya. Two, Luck just didn’t favour us… a day ago there were two groups who went to Baharaiyya… today there wasn’t even one.
Even if one finds a tour operator… and some like minded people, there a few other hitches. Remember all the groups leave only in morning so that they reach Baharaiyya well before the sunset… this is for the safety of the travelers… and not only that any party that goes for the trip must register itself in advance with the tourist police (it’s a simple procedure, but a bottleneck nevertheless). And the Tourist Police office is closed on a Friday. So even if we have had found a group… we couldn’t have register ourselves in a tourist office and therefore would had to wait for one more day to start our journey. Three, never arrive in Siwa on a Friday for a trip to Baharaiyya… in fact, I gathered that Thursday is the best day to find tours going to Baharaiyya… so the best day to arrive in Siwa is Wednesday.
Therefore we waited the Friday to get over… on the first day we merely toured around in Siwa with Suleiman… after seeing the Gebel Maut, Temple of Oracle and Temple of Amun… and thereafter we went to the Cleopatra Spring.
Cleopatra Spring is a nice place… a natural spring with lukewarm and clean water… it is a wonderful place to take a dip and though I do not know how to swim, properly… I just took out my life jacket and took a dip in the spring. It was a wonderful experience. Juno, who is mortally afraid of water… just waited for me, outside. He started talking to two French women who were also visiting the spring… we gave them lift in our Donkey Carts till the city square.
In the night we went to the Old Shali… Old Siwis used to live in fortified beehive like villages to protect themselves from desert dacoits. With time, however, this custom changed and the old bee-hive like townships gave way to brick and mortar. Today the old dwellings of Siwa lie unattended and unpopulated… visiting them gives you an insight into the life and times of Old Siwis. But the best time to visit them is the hours of dusk… when the old dilapidated dwellings create a magic… of fear, hope and timelessness. It is a must to experience, I remember even the last time when I went to Siwa… I roamed in the solitude of Old Shali all by myself.
The next day, we straight away went to the Tourist Police office… the idea was to get hold of any group that is coming for registration and gate-crash into them… however luck just deserted us. No group came for registration. We lost all hopes of doing this trip and decided to re-trace our steps back to Marsa Matrouh. From there, we decided that we will either go to Alexandria and try making it to Port Said or take a bus to Sollum and spend a night over there. And that would be decided by the very first connecting bus that we get in Marsa Matrouh.
In the process of trying to find our way to Baharaiyya, we definitely became wiser. And now I can suggest a few pointers for individuals who are trying to do this circuit.
One, try to find a group beforehand. Two, if that is difficult… arrive in Siwa on a Tuesday or a Wednesday… it is easier to find a group on these days. Three, sound out all the possible tour operators that you want to go to Baharaiyya… that helps. Four, go and meet people at the Tourist Police Office… and tell them that you desperately want to go to Baharaiyya… they may help, offer them a pack of cigarette assuring them that they will have a nice Baksheesh if they are able to arrange the trip for you.
With a very heavy heart we left Siwa… I bid adieu to my plans of doing a Great Egyptian Circuit… but as I had said- Circuit is just a state of mind, a construct. More important is the experience… in the process of trying our way to Baharaiyya, we met a lot of people… we interacted a lot… it was definitely a highlight of the trip, as important as the Siwa-Baharaiyya desert trip, which was not to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment