Another Egypt.. My trip to one of the most important african countries

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For a long time wanted to visit Egypt and the oases of the west side to the west and finally the opportunity has arrived!
TUESDAY '
land in the small airport of Al Alamein, then we start with a bus for a distance of 500km in the middle of nowhere: earth and dust.
Suddenly, here is the oasis of Siwa: huge, green, baganta of 4 lakes, 200 springs in the middle of hot water, and 2 million palm trees.
Siwa Shali Resort We stay at, very comfortable
WEDNESDAY '
visit the village of Shali: here the citadel collapsed years ago because 3 days of rain have dissolved all the salt content in the clay of the walls! The environment is still many years ago, still authentic, not a tourist, light years from places like Cairo and Sharm.: People grow gardens and date palms, live small business, women are fully veiled, and the means of most common transport is the donkey.
We visit the sources of Cleopatra, a natural swimming pool where the brides bathing Siwan for fertility, then we see a beautiful sunset on the shores of a lake Siwan.
THURSDAY '
Jeep excursion in the Great Sand Sea, the Egyptian-Libyan Sahara: we are 40 km from Libya: 300m high dunes. , Blue lakes surrounded by small palm trees, the springs that flow at 37 ° temperature, a valley where once there was the Mediterranean Sea, where there are thousands of fish skeletons and fossils of shells and corals scattered in the sand. On the way we stop at Siwa Temple of the Oracle, where Alexander the Great was consecrated and recognized as emperor of Egypt: the temple is in ruins, but it stands on a rocky hill that rises above Siwa and which offers a splendid panorama
FRIDAY '
Begins the great crossing of the Western Desert: load the jeep tents, blankets, camp kitchen and even firewood and set off the slope, the first passes on the strip of dirt that divides the lakes of Siwa seems to travel on the water, Then suddenly opens the desert with its sand dunes and traveling fast on a fine sand that seems to velvet.
Every hour there is a checkpoint, a soldier and an outpost, a bar and a host of dogs. We wonder how can you live this perfect silence for a month.
At noon we deviate more than a mile from the runway: suddenly emerge from the sand here is at least 30m high rock., Fan-shaped at the base We park the jeep. As we approach we find that this formation is composed of millions of fossilized sea shells and corals, remember when there was no mare. We eat a pack lunch sitting in the shade of this wonder: the nothing around.
We continue here and in the evening that seems like a mirage, an expanse of palm trees: the oasis of Bahariya.E 'a very poor people live in what they produce gardens spent the night in a hostel nice, cultivated on the slopes of the hill in palm grove: the hallmark of this small hotel is to have a small garden at the center of the pool temperature to 45 °! It is a spring that flows right there: you have to immerse yourself gently in and out quickly, before the head starts to spin too fast.

Saturday
Early in the morning we visit the museum of golden mummies: the museum is more than a garage that is open just for us, in which are arranged in bulk hundreds of sarcophagi and mummiedi inestimbile value: 15 years ago, near here, a donkey fell into a deep hole, his master, to pull it off is due to get to the bottom: When was the base of the pit and saw something glittering with the digging mania has seen the emergence of gold funerary masks. Inform the authorities in Cairo have been discovered mummies of the Ptolemaic period 100,000, representing the most sensational discovery in recent decades: not knowing where to put, for now they have re-covered up, keeping only a hundred in this garage, the good fortune of us tourists.
But the surprises are not finished Baharjya: in the center of the country, going down a wooden staircase leading to the bottom of a well of 10m. we enter the tomb of Bannentiu: we feel like when Carter entered the tomb of Thutankamon: colored frescoes that seem so alive were painted yesterday, but they are there for 1500 years! Unforgettable, a place that alone is worth the trip!
Bannentiu was the referent of the Pharaoh, a sort of mayor and had built this beautiful tomb that now we have the good fortune to see.
Today we seem to be Indiana Jones!
It's time to let yourself from this oasis incredible secrets to cross another part of the desert and up the Black Desert, where we camped, we are surrounded by extinct volcanoes have erupted long ago Chein a blanket of lava and lava that has colored all black the sand: amazing. We assemble the camp and go to sleep.
Sunday
Another piece of the Black Desert and then we come here is the entrance to the White Desert: towers, rocks of fantastic shape around us, in the midst of a land that each kilometer is more white in the distant past the Mediterranean Sea back, he left a thick layer of baking soda on the sand, covered with a cloak of white, like snow around the desert.
We are in a lunar world and fantastic rock formations of white shapes reminiscent of birds, faces, animals. and so on.
We visit the area called "tears of Isadora": the legend goes that this girl was here crying tears for a disappointed love, and every tear became a rock formation: it is impossible to describe this landscape: the ground seems strewn with white domes, large and small: absolutely unique!
At night, the shelter of a rock tower, assemble the camp and spend an unforgettable night around the fire, while some fennec, the little foxes of the desert, come to visit us.
MONDAY '
one more day in this magical world and then the evening is now unfortunately leaving the White Desert and return to the oasis of Bahariya and from there go north to Cairo, but that's another story.