The winter break is just across the corner, offering an opportunity to all those exploring passionate to visit winter destination cities. Siwa Oasis is one of the top hit cold weather destinations; where Cairo’s freezing cold days, are just warm at the oasis located near Libyan boarders. Its mesmerising peace and calm invades visitors’ souls, as it opens tourists’ eyes to a whole concept of beauty that the noisy, polluted city of Cairo blocks.
Beside the distinguished, unique culture of Siwa community when it comes to marriage, giving birth, and even death, the touristic places that the isolated oasis offers tourists is as beautiful as every single ritual one gets to explore in the city, and the most famous ones are the salt lakes.
The small oasis is known to be an enriching hub of wills and salt lakes, which brings the world some of the most fascinating handicrafts. Siwa oasis is surrounded by three huge salt lakes which receive freshwater from springs. This water is believed to be underground for 30,000 to 50,000 years.
For the residents of Siwa, salt is mainly a life-driving element. It is used in building homes, shaping their tools, and lamps. Products made of hardly-breaking salt are used in almost all life aspects of the Siwa people.
It is also a main source of income for thousands of residents, who totally earn their living from the crafts they make out of salt quarries. Consisting of salt rocks, the quarries offer the residents unlimited amounts of hardly-breaking rocks that are diamond glittery and white shinning that are soon turned, with the help of the artisans, into eye-capturing lighting sources, decorative products, cleansing soaps, ashtrays and candles.
The decorative products are famous all around the world, due to their eco-friendly elements and low-price.
Sold at the price range of EGP 50-350, salt handicrafts are considered the main source of income for the Siwa community, only after dates, olives and natural herbs productions.
It takes one day to a week in order to change the raw salt rock into a final alluring product, depending on the season, the size, and the carving details of it.
All pictures taken by Fadel Dawood