I just stood in the room where Alexander the Great was proclaimed the true son of Zeus and pharaoh of Egypt.I have finally made my pilgrimage to Siwa Oasis and the Temple of the Oracle of Amun Ra.

We left Marsa Matrouh around 9am, we were supposed to leave at 8:30am, but we were running on Egyptian time as the tea wasn't ready when we came down for breakfast.We got in the bus and drove the 300km to Siwa in about three hours.

We got to Siwa and went in some 26th Dynasty Nobles tombs on the Mountain of the Dead.I didn't really know much about them, but we had the place to ourselves and the four tombs were really interesting.The entire mountain was honeycombed with small tombs, some no biggerthan the size of a modern mini fridge other, like the ones we visited, were about the size of the kitchen in most middle class houses.

We checked into our hotel and Mostafa asked if any of us were interested in visiting the Temple of the Oracle.We all wanted to go, especially me as this was the reason I had come to Siwa, to walk in the footsteps of Alexander.

We went out and had lunch first, as this is an oases inhabited by Berbers, I thought I would have cous cous.The food was amazing and that's probably all I will eat the entire time I am in Siwa.

We hired donkey carts to take us to the Oracle which was a really fun way to get there.We visited the ruined temple of Umm el Bayad on the way before climbing up to the temple of the Oracle.We climbed up to the sanctuary and when the others left the room, I stood there in complete reverence.I was standing in the room that Alexander the Great had been proclaimed the son of a god.I closed my eyes and a cool breeze came from nowhere and this was all I could hear and feel, it whistled through the temple, as if the past was speaking to me.

We left the temple and I actually drove our donkey cart back to the hotel.The donkeys name was Ali Baba and I kept yelling "Yah Mule!"at him, trying to beat the other donkey cart, which made the driver laugh.

The group met up again before dinner and went to the Shali fortress for sunset.We sat up there for ages looking at the old mud brick ruins watching the sun slowly disappear beyond the hills in the distance.It was really spectacular.I've never seen anything like it in all my travels.

After dinner we took a 4 x 4 to a hot spring in the middle of the desert.There wasn't quite enough room for all of us so I sat in the back.We sat in the spring for about an hour drinking Bedouin tea and looking at the stars.I walked back to the jeep, carrying my shoes and realised I would miss the feel of the cool desert sand under my feet when I went home in just under two months.I almost miss it already and I'm not gone yet.