Siwa Oasis Travel Guide
he Siwa Oasis is located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert. Siwa is a small desert oasis village 350 miles west of cairo, Siwa is home to the ancient Temple of Ammon(Amun) where Alexander the Great came in 331 BC to consult the oracle.
About 80 km in length and 20 km wide, Siwa Oasis is one of Egypt's isolated settlements, with 23,000 people, mostly ethnic Berbers who speak a distinct language known as Siwi. Siwa is the westernmost of the 5 major oases of Egypt and can be reached by car from Baharia or from Marsa Matruh, on the Mediterranean coast. In comparison with the other oases, the most striking feature of the Siwan landscape is the presence of many salt lakes, that diminish in size during the summer.
However, the salt also impregnates the soil, creating a big problem. Mud bricks have been used for centuries to build entire village fortresses, and are called "qasr" in Arabic, such as Shali in Siwa, Qasr in Farafra, Qasr Dakhla in Dakhla and Qasr Kharga in Kharga.
In last times, all of them have suffered mainly from the rain rather than any human devastation. Shali, in particular, has now been reduced to an impressive and dangerous ruin due to the high content of salt in its mud bricks.
The city offers to the tourist, a wide range of traditional products: some of them, baskets made of palm fronds and decorated with coloured threads, dresses and embroidered fabrics, and also the famous and highly prized Siwan silver jewels, including elaborate necklaces with pendants of several shapes, large incised bracelets and rings, and heavy earrings with chains and bells, being also heavy to be worn as earingss, they are left hanging on both sides of the head suspended from a leather strip.