Some tourists who visit the Siwa Oasis end up staying forever – not because of the dangers of the Saharan desert or unrest in Egypt, but rather the spot itself, which feels like it belongs in another era.
Shasli doesn’t need words. When a friend pats him on the back of the head, he forms a pyramid with his hands, meaning “aggressive Egyptian” in his own personal sign language.
Shasli, who is deaf, works in a local cafe in the Siwa Oasis, deep in the Sahara desert. He is a member of the Berber tribe, whose identity is strongly connected to the magical natural landscape of the area.
The Berber tribe members like to think they are different from the Egyptians in the capital and elsewhere – hence Shasli’s pyramid sign.
When he makes the sign for Siwa, Shasli bends forward and stretches out both arms towards the fertile earth, as though indicating the roots of his existence. The message is clear: We are here, and this place belongs to us.
It’s not just the locals who are charmed by Siwa, but also tourists. Siwa is a strange, exotic, otherworldly place in about every respect. The green island surrounded by endless sand is so far removed from the metropolises of Cairo and Alexandria that tourists who come here feel they are not only entering another world, but another era.
When Australian Leigh Ann Titus first came here, she felt as though she were being pulled into a parallel universe.
At the time, she had a well-paid job with an oil company and was used to being flown around in helicopters.
Today, Titus is relaxing and drinking tea in a cafe near the Shali Fortress. The walls are neatly plastered and ventilators buzz above the blue tables. “The energy in this place is rooted into the ground,” she says. Indeed, Titus herself appears as steady as a rock.
It all began with an ordinary holiday, she explains. At the end of 2010, after a visit to Egypt, she simply didn’t want to get back on the plane. She followed her intuition and ended up here.
Then, the violent protests of the Arab Spring began in Cairo. The country was in a state of emergency. Titus stayed in sleepy Siwa – first for safety, eventually for love.
There are plenty of cliches about the enchantment of oases. But when you see the clay buildings and palm groves of Siwa in the distance after several hours of driving on bumpy roads made of Saharan sand, you start to think that this is where those cliches must have begun.
Suddenly, the arid desert gives way to a canopy of lush palm trees, whose magnificent crowns form a green carpet over an ancient clay temple. Shallow salt lakes reflect magical sunsets before the fading light leaves only a faint glow on the dramatic rock contours.
When night falls and the Milky Way becomes unusually clear above the small town of 20,000 inhabitants, there is almost complete silence.
The eco-lodges on the lakes often have no electricity, and the only light comes from candles or torches. “No internet, no telephone. The people here come for the silence. Not to think about anything – not about work, not about stress,” says hotel manager Mohammed Gigal.
Since the Arab Spring of 2011, things have not been easy for Egypt’s tourism industry – especially in a place like Siwa, which lies only 50 kilometres from the border with Libya.
“The army is taking care very well and is observing the desert,” Gigal says.
The statistics suggest he may be right: Though areas outside the cities in Egypt are not always safe, Siwa has been quiet in recent years. No known incidents, no violence.
The myth of Siwa goes back thousands of years. The oasis became a hub for the caravan trade after the first conquest of the Nile valley by the Assyrians almost 2,700 years ago, explains Amr Baghi, the local inspector of antique sites. “Therefore the trade from Middle Africa to the Mediterranean was flourishing via Siwa,” he explains.
The Greek influence, which can be seen in the hieroglyphs of the tombs, also originates from this period.
Siwa is a place for travellers and artists, Titus says. She plans to stay even though she’s separated from her husband. “There are a few people like me here,” she adds. “We simply can’t leave this place.”
