A TripAdvisor™ TripWow slideshow of a travel blog to Siwa, Egypt by TravelPod blogger Acroyse04 titled "Weekend in Siwa (Part 1)" Acroyse04’s travel blog entry: "Before I start, just In case you were wondering some facts about Siwa, here they are; Siwa is an oasis in the Sahara desert and the most distant Egyptian oasis from the Nile valley. It is only 30 miles away from the border of Libya, so the people there are more North African than Egyptian with their own Berber dialect (they speak Siwi!). It has over 300000 palm and olive trees and 280 water springs. The people are very conservative and are mostly known for their silver and emriodery work. SO- Thursday morning 8:00am- the very first rainy day in Cairo! We all met at the bus ready to load our stuff and begin the ten hour journey across Egypt to Siwa- an oasis located right smack in the middle of the desert. There were five guys, seven girls, along with Matthew (program director) Tamer (his assistant) Dr. Ronda (Egyptology professor leading the tour and lectures) Yasmina (Arabic teacher) and Karen and Chase who are two other members in the AMIDEAST office. The long journey began around 8:15 and me and Lindley, my seatmate, settled in for the drive. Luckily we stopped only two hours later at one of the 'nicest rest area complexes" we would ever see- thankfully I was able to get a delicious coffee here- unfortunately the bathroom stops were very few and far between from then on. We continued driving and most of us <b>...</b>