El Alamein and the coast

We had a very peaceful night at Siwa and looked around the old town, had a drink in a cafe and visited the Hill of the Dead seeing our first Egyptian tombs and paintings before heading back to Marsa. No sooner had we arrived than we got a text from Quentin and Julie saying they had just arrived in Siwa!

Next morning we moved on to El Alamein passing mile after mile of Hotel Resorts. By the time we reached Alexandria we had passed in excess of 80kms of non stop resorts around half of which were under construction. Alamein itself is just a small town tagged beside the non stop resorts. The hills are rapidly vanishing as the diggers use them as quarries but fortunately the war cemeteries are still havens of tranquility. Both the Italian and German ones are overlooking the only piece of undeveloped beach this side of Alex. The Italians have build a chapel with marble plaques lining the walls with names on and the Germans have gone for the fort style they used at Tobruk. We stayed the night here and spent an interesting evening chatting to the caretaker family who have lived on the site since before the war.

The Commonwealth cemetery is a traditional design and huge. The greeks is a small site not as well tended as the others but still peaceful and fronted by a pair of Greek columns and temple style roof. In the grounds of the commonwealth cemetery is a monument to the Australians and another to the South Africans.

The museum is not too big and has certainly benefited from the Imperial War Museum assisting in the translations in the British wing. Some of the plaques in the other wings are almost completely indecipherable! Overall though it is a very good museum with the most fascinating part being about a truck found in the desert in 1999. The truck was almost fully in tact with ammo and condensed milk tins etc. The engine even started!

We left Alamein and tracked down the tiny station (the soldiers called it "Heaven") which is now crumbling but still recognisable. A new station sits next to it but the original - complete with a tree to give some shade was in fact very moving to be in. Sitting under the tree with the railway lines in front of you you could almost picture the soldiers getting on and off the trains.

Alexandria! It sounds such a grand place, filled with history and Linda had got it in her head that this was going to be European Mediterranean like city. The roads in were manic. It made Tripoli look like a drive In the country on a Sunday afternoon. The roads split, joined, merged and ended with no warnings, there were potholes that Minis could go in and never come out, ruts That if it rained you'd need a ferry to cross and speed bumps the size of the Cotswolds. Add to that you usual mix of microbuses and cars racing and hooting, then get us lost so we end up driving down a tram line and find ourselves in the middle of the souk and you could safely say it was not pleasant.

We did eventually find a parking place next to the fort and taxied off to see the Library - a wonderful futuristic new building that is worthy of the history associated with its name. A wander round the heaving streets and a stroll down the promenade and a nice meal and cake in the poshest patisserie in town and we thought Alex was quite nice, at least on the shoreside. In land it is a sprawling mass of multi story apartments and ports. It looks extremely poor and run down.

We get back to Taffy and found the juice bar that was about 30cm from our van was open to 3am and had the loudest most distorted radio in the world playing. If it had been selling booze we could understand it but OJ? Midnight and the place is heaving and people knock on the sides try the doors shake the van and bang their heads on the mirrors - that OJ must be strong stuff. We can actually see the point of not selling alcohol here, if they get this crazy on OJ and Candy Floss I'd hate to see them on shandy let alone anything stronger! So we up sticks and set off for Cairo. Fortunately Jon spotted a truck stop near the port and asked if we could use it. We were ushered into a warehouse to wake up the next morning and find our selves locked in and at the front of the warehouse seats set up tarpaulins draped on the walls and orange spook suits laid out. All it would need was a video camera and a couple of hooded men with Kalashnikovs and you'd have recognized it from the news. Needless to say we hadn't noticed any of this when we drove in and slept like babies!
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