fragments

I have been wanting to write about so many things but I keep on letting things be as ephemral as they were meant to be.

last week I went out with ahmad and met up with some of his friends, the hash was excellent and the night was fun.. I ran across the corniche highway while high (very near death experience) and risked getting questioned by the police due to strange behavior on the crowded stanley bridge past 3 am.. we also watched a group of men sitting at a cafe which is in the middle of the water reached by a thin walkway, these guys seemed to be having a good time until we noticed them starting to take their clothes off. it seemed like there was a bet and one guy jumped in the very deep water. the waves were too strong, he swam further out towards the piers of the bridge we are standing on then turned around and attempted to swim to shore, but half way he was drowning, it was all so surreal to watch this with my own head spinning.

the other night saima and naghine came from cairo to spend the night with me in alex and we had some good sea food, and headed to 24/7 (a sheesha place) where we ran into this guy from london and his two quasi-egyptian friends and we spent the rest of the night talking, speaking and eating too many deserts. the one guy was very interesting, his mother is english and his father is originally indian but their families have a history in egypt with businesses, etc. so he is infact egyptian because he lives there and speaks like one but he cant have an egyptian passport because neither his father nor mother are technically egyptian. a little fragment of a cosmopolitan past.

the morning after our night in alex we headed 4 hours west to marsa matrouh en route to siwa oasis. the beach in marsa is incredible, absolutely nothing like it. water so blue and clear it unreal with amazing beach, sand and everything a beach needs. we stayed at bou-sit hotel which seemed familiar and sure enough when I came back home I told my mom and she pulled out some vacation photos from when I was about 7 in the very same hotel.

the road to siwa is a two lane straight road which heads south from marsa into the western desert. my guide book said that in some areas mines are still there from world war two when the british and italians spread mines all over that part of the desert, they are marked with triangles. the women onthe bus were all completely covered up and the men seemed to be very conservative, they also spoke a different language: siwi. we arrived in siwa close to midnight and took a mule driven cart (taxi) to our hotel. shali lodge is probably one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever seen. it is subtle, romantic, if not too sophisticated. I immediatly fell in love. I spoke with this beautiful siwan from our hotel staff with crystal blue eyes so light theres only a hint of color, dark skin and masculine features to perfection. I had said to him that I would like to try arak ( a local traditional liquor made from dates) and also some of his hash. he did not hesitate to invite me for a smoke on top of an old house with a view of the lit up palms around the hotel.