Boots on the Loose

Christmas in Egypt! Bizarre. Well, not really… just had to be always reminding ourselves that it was actually Christmas as there was very little to remind us of it. Siwah is actually a pretty cool little oasis town in the desert; only problem is we’ve been to so many towns like it throughout Tunisia/Libya it’s hard to get excited anymore.

At the centre of town is the old town up on a mountain top; incredibly unique looking – was virtually washed out by 3 days of rain at some point in the past and what remains is a crooked, jagged looking pile of dried mud that you can climb to the top of. Has a magnificent Vegas feel at night as they have flood lights strategically placed throughout that light the thing up.

Before dinner on christmas day I decided to go to the barber and try out one of the cut-throat shaves that everyone does. I would rather have gone for a root canal. Started by using the electric clippers to remove the 2 months of hair I’d amassed (at which point I should have left); he then pulled out this dental floss stuff which is used for pulling hair, and before the tears dried I had the best looking set of eyebrows this side of the sphynx.

He then loaded on the shaving cream and after about 30 patches of blood and a second pass over, trimmed the hair around the ears and it was time to get out of there (in his defence, it was definitely a new blade and he seemed to know what he was doing… guess I just bleed easily).

Christmas dinner was nice; buffet at the Safari Paradise Hotel which included turkey, traded secret santa gifts, played the “chocolate” game and off to bed at a decent hour for yet another 5am start (getting very tired of these).

So far the people of Egypt have been much more pleasant than I’d expected; I’ve often heard bad things about how they treat tourists (particularly women) but at least in Siwah that didn’t seem to be the case.