We arrived at Cairo international, excited to be in the "New Egypt", following the people's revolution of 25 Jan 2011....a date that will no doubt have street names and perhaps even future cities named after it - for Egypt already has 6 October City (the date they and Syria launched an attack on Israel in Sinai and Golan Heights with early success - the 'Yom Kippur War') and 26 July Bridge etc, the former having a lovely hospital and being our end point of this trip!

We hired a car and drove to Cairo downtown - reassuring to note that the driving experience in the 'new Egypt' remains unchanged from the former Egyptian driving experience. Use your horn, grin insanely at everyone, gesticulate and remember that painted lanes, signage and the likes, are pretty much entirely irrelevant. After geting somewhat lost, we arrived in Tahrir Square and then got lost once again. Finally, to the hotel...whew, that was fun!

So this trip was to head to Siwa, a desert oasis we both knew of, but had yet to visit. The drive there was fab, straight out of Cairo on the Desert Highway...go to Alexandria, turn left and follow the coast through El Alamein, and out to Marsa Matrouh, then turn left again and head 300 kilometers south - all up circa 800 kilometers from Cairo. This really is remote at 40 km from Libyan boarder and 300km from coast. We passed through a couple of military check points, but other than that pretty uneventful - a very quiet road once we got out of Cairo, and no other tourists at all.

Siwa is an ancient town on a huge oasis. It sits in the middle of the desert, below sea level with two huge lakes and a sea of water just a meter deep into the sand. Alexander the Great came here, which is its claim to fame - this is where he visited the famed Oracle of Siwa to determine who his Father was (and I thought it was Phillip of Macedonia), and lo and behold, it turns out he was proclaimed as Son of Amun. Possibly he was the son of one of the greater of the Pharonic Gods, or it might have been the massive army that he brought with him, that held sway - who knows.

Siwa itself is fascinating. The local population of around 30,000 are mostly Berber and speak Amazigh as 1st language and Arabic as second. We stayed in an Eco Lodge, 15 kms outside of Siwa on the edge of the Great Sand Sea which stretches into infinity. The lodge is the Taziry (www.taziry.com) - damned nice it was too. Our plan was a little sight seeing, a day on horses and a night in the desert and our photos show some of this. The silence of the place, the bird life and massive skies alone were worth the trip.

Unfortunately our trip was called a bit short. We spent a single day with a local guide seeing historic sites of the Mountain of the Dead, the Temple of Amun, Temple of the Oracle, Cleopatra's Spring and of course the old mud city of Siwa (Shali) itself. The Mountain of the Dead is quite something. It is filled with tombs, some very plain and others ornate, going back 5000 years. Human bones and fragments litter the landscape and a few of the tombs (under lock and key) are of royalty, with original painting on the ceilings, that you would normally associate with a trip to the Valley of the Kings. History here has a long pedigree.

Cleopatra's Spring, is just one of many springs in the area. Deep, clear and warm water bubbling up to a pool perhaps 50 feet across. Although the springs themselves go back to pharonic times, many, Cleopatra Spring being one, were 'modernised' by the Romans who walled them in, in great circular walls with steps into the depths of the spring itself. From the air, they must look like great weeping eyes in the desert, surrounded by date palms. They are beautiful and in summer months, when it reaches 50 degrees celcius in these parts, a real life saver for the local population.

Our 1st day in Siwa finished at the house of a French couple who live in Siwa in the Winter, and back in France in summer, and why not! A very nice couple, who fed us on home made cakes, home grown olives and local nuts.

Day two at Taziry was full of promise, as we ate a good breakfast talking about the planned horse riding out into the desert for mid morning. The horses at Taziry are among the best conditioned and looked after horses i have ever seen. Beautiful Arabian horses, they are fine boned, fast and seem to dance and never stay still. Fabulous horses and some of these are the photos associated with this blog. Unfortunately horses are anything but predictable. My horse was a real dancer. She walked forward, backward (for real) and turned at the slightest twitch of the reign. She also made it clear she did not want to leave the stable and after we had gone 400 meters, she asserted herself, turned and bolted, with me trying to reign her in. It was a one way battle, so I gave her free reign and actually, quite enjoyed the sensation of the surge in speed and power as she headed back home. Unfortunately a step change and a sharp turn saw me parting company from my fast Arabian beauty, straight off the side!

Two days later, after a day at Taziry licking my wounds and my pride, and the guys from Taziry (Claude and Majd) and Anni (who broke her own speed record, but I won't tell anyone!) have driven 800 kilometers to deliver me to the hospital at 6 October City, just outside of Cairo. The long and short of it is two fractures in the back. Fortunately both breaks are snaps of the a couple of the spikey bones that come off the lumbar vertebrae (L3 and L4 in my case), and not the vertebrae themselves. These bones serve no purpose, other than to launch me onto Planet Pain, when snapped! An 800 kilometer drive did not help, but my pain tolerance is now higher than ever before, as I suspect is Anni's patience.

Following an enforced stay, as I was unable to fly, we returned to the UK 4 days later than planned, with lovely memories of Siwa and the new Egypt (I swear that Cairo is actually cleaner than it was last time I visited), two broken bones, some impressive bruises and a six week recovery plan of doing oh, not much at all! Poor Anni goes back to work tomorrow and ready for a holiday, having spent the last ten days looking after me.

Siwa - we will be back and I will ride again!