El Alamein and Marsa Matrouh

I'm back from a fantastic weekend in Marsa Matrouh, a resort town on the northern Egyptian coast out by the Libyan border. We started on Thursday morning which meant skipping a day of classes, which suited everyone just fine. We wanted to get on the road early since the drive would be about 4hrs, and I wanted to stop at El Alamein to see the WWII museum there. For some reason, we were traveling without our multi-vehicle armed security escort this weekend, so it was just a handful of us in a mini-van. Nobody could ever really put a finger on why we had the escort last weekend, or why we didn't have one this weekend. These weekend trips, I'm learning, are the result of complex negotiations with the governor of this province, the mayor of that city, the cousin of the dean of the university, the brother of somebody else's cousin, and so on. I spent a bit of energy once trying to figure it all out, but I soon gave up and now I just show up when I'm told.

The museum at El Alamein was one of the best organized and creative museums I've seen in Egypt. They have so much authentic material from the desert campaign there--- uniforms, maps, ciphers, tanks, UXO (unexploded ordinance...seems iffy in a place where safety is not a top priority). I'd read a lot about this place, so I really appreciated the opportunity to drive through the region and see it with my own eyes.

Not long after getting back in the van, and right around the time we were equidistant from our origin and destination, our mini-van began to complain of the heat. Whereas once we had been galloping across the desert at a dangerous yet carefree tantivy, we were now plodding along the side of the road at barely a trot. Finally, we came to a stop near some Bedouin tents (nobody else out there for miiiiiiiles and miles), and began working on the radiator. As we sat in the blazing sun, soaked in sweat, I was imagining how poorly this weekend trip was going to turn out, and I wondered how so much could go wrong on any given day here in Egypt. We got the beast going and lots of short hops later, we rolled into our hotel named after Cleopatra due to her alleged bathing activity in the nearby waters. After seeing the Med turned into a thick garbage-strewn soup in Alexandria, I was giddy at the idea that there might be water here in Egypt that had not been completely destroyed. Despite an electric power plant being just 25 meters from our beach, the water was nice and the hotel was incredibly peaceful and calm. I jumped right in and splashed around for the first time this trip.

The next day we went out to a beach called "ageeba" (عجيبة) which means "amazing" in Arabic. Many aspects of this beach were indeed amazing, but for Loren the swimmer, the most amazing part of the beach was that I had this entire body of impossibly blue water, as far as the eye could see, to myself. We weren't alone at the beach by any means (see photo), but most Egyptians don't (or can't) swim, so they just go to beaches and wade in up to their knees. In this case, nobody got in at all due to somewhat rough conditions, so I swam around gleefully and played in the waves, careful to avoid the burqa-clad woman casting a line in my direction from shore. Speaking of women's clothes, a new word entered my vocabulary this weekend as I lounged on the shore--- the "burqini".

We headed home this morning but stopped off at Rommel's bunker headquarters (he also liked Marsa Matrouh). It's a pretty simple bunker, but it's striking in that they have it pretty much as it was left at the end of the desert campaign, complete with Rommel's field jacket, his desk, a Nazi flag on a flag pole, and maps showing tank placements, etc. I got a chill as I took hold of the Nazi flag and pulled it away from the flagpole, revealing the swastika. I can't think of another flag that would make that sort of impression on me, and I couldn't help but think that dire forces were somehow embodied in that cloth. I got the hell out of that bunker and headed down the road to McDonald's, where I slurped down a chocolate shake and a McArabia as I took in the brilliant blue of the Med one last time.

We made it back safe and sound to Alex, where I am about to begin my last week here before heading to Syria. I'm looking forward to it!