Travellers' Tales: Alamein attraction

Archie Henderson dodges landmines to tour Egypt's famous World War 2 battlefield

Egypt's Western Desert, across which Monty and Rommel fought their epic battles in World War 2, is not a pretty place. Battlefields can be scenic, like Spioenkop, or evocative, like Isandlwana. Alamein, the centrepiece of those desert clashes of arms, is a mix of Riviera kitsch and a gravel pit.

It can, however, be beautiful in the eyes of beholders who know where they want to go, are aware of the history and alert to its clues. It is then that the harsh terrain will offer glimpses of what it must have been like in that horror when Claude Auchinleck; Bernard Law Montgomery, still a mere lieutenant-general; and Erwin Rommel, a Hitler favourite renowned as "The Desert Fox", fought the battles of El Alamein from July to November 1942 that helped change the course of a world war.

The beholders who reported for duty at the Mena House Oberoi in Cairo in October, on the 70th anniversary of the final Battle of Alamein, were a mixed bag of retired judges, a surgeon, an aeronautical engineer, an investment banker, an anorak fascinated by the Western Desert's railway system and a retired businessman hoping to understand what his father had gone through in the desert war.

Mercifully, there was not a know-all among them, even though the American couple who visit Gettysburg once a year and who had come straight from the battlefields of Crete had every right to be.

Mena House, which sits on the outskirts of Cairo, was an ideal starting point. Named for a king (Menes, who founded the first Egyptian dynasty) and built for another one, Ismail the Magnificent, who reigned as khedive of Egypt and Sudan until 1879, it was commissioned as a hunting lodge.

The place has grown from the small establishment that hosted the generals who fought those desert battles, but at its heart it retains the glamour of its Edwardian past, when it was popular among affluent colonial tourists, who chose it for the hotel's proximity to Giza. They could walk to the pyramids after a breakfast of kidneys and venison, or ride there in colourful horse-drawn hantoors.

The breakfast menu is healthier today, but the hantoors still operate, alongside taxis and buses.

There would be not much walking for our lot until we reached the foot of Quaret el Himeimat, the twin peaks that rise out of the desert plain near the edge of the Qattara Depression, which marked the southern tip of the frontline.

A scramble to the top of Himeimat gives what would have been a good view of Rommel's last throw of the dice, an outflanking manoeuvre and an attack on the ridge at Alam Halfa, 30km away.

But the real grandstand seat is on Alam Halfa itself. The ridge is close to Alamein, near the Mediterranean coast, and is classic high ground. It was to this place that Montgomery lured Rommel and gave him a bloody nose in a gritty defensive battle that would allow the Allied commander some breathing space before going on to the attack at Alamein almost two months later.

Reaching the battlefields is not easy. Permission from the Egyptian army is required because parts of the desert still hide unexploded ordnance, including landmines. The last thing Egyptian tourism needs, with all its current difficulties, is some war buff going up in smoke on, say, Ruweisat Ridge.

Armies the world over seldom give permission easily, so it was a case of "hurry up and wait" before setting off in a convoy of 4x4s. The Bedouins, who were our guides, have long given up camels for Toyota bakkies and treat the desert much like our taxis do the freeways. "Murderous fool!" was the verdict of a retired judge on his driver's skills. But, if you forget for a moment the landmines, it can be exhilarating racing across expanse, often three abreast.

At least the Bedouin know their way around, even though they were at times second-guessed by some of us.

The ground is unforgivingly hard, covered with sharp rocks, and one place looks just like another. With little topography to speak of, it is difficult to navigate. One soldier, it is said, left his foxhole without a compass when nature called at night - and was never seen again.

Not even a GPS helps much. Ridges are unlike those we are used to, being mostly gentle elevations, and Kidney Ridge, the scene of heroic action in the war where a VC was won, is actually a depression.

It was there that tour leader Mick Holtby, a former British army tank commander, lost his famous cool. A Bedouin guide who was born in the area two years before the battle and evacuated along with his family, had brought us to Kidney Ridge, only to be challenged on whether it was the right place.

"I am not going to argue with a man about his own address," said Holtby. The rest of us shut up.

Parts of the battlefield along the coast have been obscured by a building boom over the past 10 years and in the desert there are no signposts, but Egyptian tourism's attentions are elsewhere.

"It was not our war," said Abdel Raouf, a Bedouin leader in the area. "But we try to help those whose war it was and who come to visit today."

Neither are there many relics of the battles. The railway halt that gave Alamein its name still stands but in disrepair next to the new station. The Blockhouse, where a famous action was fought by Australians, also exists but is derelict and smells foul if approached downwind.

The best-kept reminders are the cemeteries and memorials.

At Alamein, the British and Commonwealth Cemetery is strikingly understated, the rows of 7000 headstones hidden from the road by a sandstone wall.

Germany's solemn War Memorial ossuary holds the high ground on a coastal ridge, which was captured by the Australians in the fierce fighting near Tel el Eisa that helped stop Rommel's advance in July 1942.

The Italian memorial is, as might be expected, the most impressive architecturally. It was designed by Alamein veteran Paolo Caccia-Dominioni, who spent 20 years scouring the battlefield for the remains of his comrades.

At the 70th anniversary of El Alamein, Captain Sifiso Nene, part of a South African delegation, laid a wreath for the Transvaal Horse Artillery, among whose battle honours are those of the Western Desert.

"It is a place every soldier should be entitled to see," he said of the cemetery at Alamein. "To know where we are going to, we should know where we came from."

From Alamein, our tour headed deep into the desert, to the Siwa oasis on the edge of the Great Sand Sea, where the British army's special forces were formed and where Alexander the Great once came to consult the local oracle.

Then it was on to Alexandria via Mersa Matruh, where South African troops were involved in vicious fighting. It ended, appropriately, with an "Ice Cold in Alex" at the Cecil Hotel on the waterfront - and in Monty's Bar.

If you go...

 El Alamein tours: Numerous operators offer tours to the El Alamein battlefield, often as one-day excursions. There are also dedicated tours lasting up to three days.

On some tours, guests camp in the desert at the edge of the Qattara Depression, which adds to the atmosphere of the tour and gives visitors a glimpse of the conditions under which the armies fought.

A thorough tour should include Alam Halfa, Ruweisat, the ridges at Mitirieya and Alam Nayil, the OP at Himeimat and the Qattara Depression.

For dedicated tours, see www.theculturalexperience.com or http://wilderness-ventures-egypt.com. Visit during the winter months - the desert is far too hot for casual travel in mid-year.

Getting there: Current return fares from Johannesburg to Cairo on Egyptair (www.egyptair.com) start at R4008.