written by Lucrezia Zito
Arriving at a forecourt you find yourself surrounded by high clay walls with openings through candlelight can be seen flickering in the distance. Above you the Milky Way shines in the blue-black sky. Absolute silence. You can hear the stars.
This is the paradise built by Sir Monir Neamatalla, Adrère Amellal , white mountain in Arabic, a luxurious eco-lodge, located in the Siwa Oasis , in Egypt.
Here, there is no electricity and mobiles, apart from the rooms, are prohibited. The buildings are in traditional Siwan style, the furnitures are made from palms or solid blocks of salt and the candles that light at night the rooms are pure beeswax.

Founder and President of Environmental Quality International ( EQI), one of the Egyptian leading development consulting firms, Dr Neamatalla turned a utopian vision into a profitable investment, the result? The Siwa Eco-lodge. With this Hotel he showed that it is possible to manage resources successfully, integrate people from the surrounding area into the project and at the same respect nature and the region cultural heritage. Mr Neamatalla has facilitated the development of micro-enterprise in the area and he has taken part in the governance and at the meantime has established a successful business.
So, it is no coincidence that Adrère Amellal has been seen as an initiative of sustainable development and it has received many prestigious awards from well-know Institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce and UNDP (World Business Award for the Siwa Initiative 2006).

Sewa has become now a symbol of an advanced community that has learnt the worth of wise management of environmental resource and clean energies.