I peeled off my jeans, not believing my luck, or what I was about to do.

But let me set some context here. My ex-pat friends had made Siwa Oasis sound like it was the last place on earth not spoiled by man, a sort of Walden Pond of Egypt, and I'd have to get there before Sonesta or the Hilton moved in. I didn't so much scoff at their outbursts of "You've just got to visit before it's too late!" as respond in disbelief; for one thing, there wasn't enough there to destroy, and for another, a pond with a few date palms around it like you see in Bugs Bunny didn't sound all that exciting. Because you could practically spit into Libya from this 'paradise', and because you most likely needed a bureaucratic stamp from some hard-to-find police office in Marsa Matruh. Well, it was a bit more pleasant daydreaming about Dahab ('gold' in Arabic), that sunshiny coastal village where marijuana's free, fish and beer are cheap, and the Red Sea dives - such as The Blue Hole - put some stagnant pond to shame. Besides, at about 1500 kilometeres, it was a long way.

Sure, the first leg of the journey would be grand; one could take the pleasant Spanish train ride through the pastoral Nile Delta and spend a couple of days wandering the Mediterranean streets of Alexandria while steeling up to cross the desert. Ride a carriage along the corniche and gulp down the fresh sea air. Sup at Khodoura's, where the fish wait to be plucked from a case of ice, and tables offer a splendid view of Alexandria's harbor.

But then why continue past thousands of condos cutting a mile swath along the Mediterranean coast for a good hundred miles, then over to Al Alamein where a shabby museum salutes the pivotal WWII battle, and further to Sidi Abd el Rahman, home to absolutely nothing, before reaching Marsa Matruh - still a daunting five hour ride away? Why, when you could be leaning backward on fat Bedouin pillows, pleasantly high and drinking a Stella (Egypt's excellent lager beer) while shadows from the hanging lantern flames play over the other slackers lounging in an open air café twenty feet from the Red Sea, digesting your grilled Bouri and nursing "The Brothers Karamazov", or petting one of the contented kitty cats that has cadged half a meal from you? Why squeeze yourself knee first into a cramped East/West Tours bus stuffed with growly men who spit in the ailses, chainsmoke Cleopatras and jabber 'til three in the morning? Why rumble and sway across one of the greatest, flattest, dullest deserts in the world, when you could be chasing lionfish in a bay the color of kiwi? No, really, please tell me.

Sometimes it was hard enough just to walk a few blocks in Cairo, let alone travel 700 miles. Sometimes it just stepping out your front door felt like weightlifting. People stayed in bed for days using the phone to grocery shop, do laundry, order videos and pizza. It wasn't the oven-level heat, though that did sap one's energy, or the fractured dangerous sidewalks (where there were any), or the crazy taxi drivers hounding you every ten paces, or even the occasional sassy beggar who lifted his galabaya to expose his bloated genitalia, that wilted your spirit. It was just Cairo.

The idea then of traveling all the way to Siwa just to experience the Berber thing. Just to see an oasis. Just to drive ten kilometers out into sand dunes in the middle of nowhere. It sounded like too much work. But Tuesday wanted to go. And if Tuesday wanted to do something, sooner or later we usually did it.

"So," Tuesday wiggled into her train seat. "What do you want to see in Siwa?"

I shrugged. What did I know about Siwa other than that it was the supposed origin of my bottled water?

Tuesday's stockpile of information included a couple of dogeared guidebooks, several maps and notes from an Egyptian friend, and Ahmed Fakhry's incomparable Siwa Oasis. We were, she began, unlikely to see any women in Siwa. Much was made of the olive oil and the dates. Many of the people who lived there descended from the Berbers and only recently had they shaken off their homosexual predilections. While we passed field after field where laborers on their knees hoed and harvested, Tuesday reminded me of how Alexander was charmed by an Egypt full of colorful temples, pomp and circumstance, and undoubtedly the intense spiritual atmosphere inspired by places with names such as Heliopolis and Memphis. Alexander wanted to consult the Oracle of Amun to find out if he was indeed divine, so he traveled to Siwa.

Three men sat crosslegged upon a dyke, newspapers spread open before them from which they chose bits of tomato and lettuce. I imagined the tamaya and fu'ul they must have been chomping with their fresh vegetables. I had loved hanging out by the carts watching the men eat; they seemed almost holy during their meals, silent and meditative and now seeing them in the sun, dressed in ancient robes and sitting crosslegged in a circle near their pastoral work, I wondered what it would have been like to join them. Of course I understood my foolish elevation of the 'noble peasant', but still, the scenery was worth the history lesson.

Tuesday continued: although many scholars apparently presumed Amun was a 'modern' god, it turns out that he's noted in an Old Kingdom pyramid text; what's really attractive about Amun is his reputation for being a primeval deity and a symbol of creative force. Here we have a god who at one time stood for balance, representing the duality of both the hidden and the revealed. According to T's book, the earthy god was known as a ram, a frog, a crocodile, an ape and as a goose, which is why he was sometimes referred to fondly as the 'Great Cackler'.

In Marsa Matruh we decided to skip the bus and threw in with a recently married Greek couple who rented a white Toyota minivan to take us across the desert. They were young and fresh and beautiful, still exuding the joys of honeymoon exhiliration while drifting through Turkey, Syria, Israel, Jordan and finally Egypt with nothing but their small canvas rucksacks and Reebok hiking shoes. In the front sat four Egyptians. Two, dressed in their light blue working galabayas and turbans, sat upon wooden cartons between the seats. Even with the windows cranked wide open, we couldn't help but notice a heavy odor of fish, and before long we discovered several crates of dried whitefish under the rear seats of the van. It was going to be a long ride.