Sinai: off the beaten track
land that encompasses mountain and valley, burning rock and cool oasis, the most luxurious five star hotels and the most arid expanses of desert. Bonnie M Sampsell describes her week-long adventure in the Sinai desert
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From top: a Bedouin on top of Gebel Abbas; Morad, in the Coloured Canyon, is sliding under the rock and down the chute to be caught by his friends below
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I first became interested in the history and geology of the Sinai Peninsula while doing library research for my book, A Traveler's Guide to the Geology of Egypt. I wanted to see for myself the things I had read about. I first visited Sinai on a group tour in October 2002, but that trip only whetted my appetite, and I was soon longing to return so that I could see much more, at a much slower pace. I set about looking for a vacation which would combine the convenience of a group tour with the flexibility of a private expedition.
In the end, I asked my friends, Mohamed and Mahmoud, to make the arrangements and act as guides. I invited Richard, an American friend who is also interested in ancient Egypt and in rocks, to share the expences. Mahmoud decided we should engage Ahmed, who had experience in the Sinai back country. Then two other guide friends, Ehab and Morad, saw that our itinerary included places they had never been and begged to be allowed to come along. This brought our group to seven, the limit for a single vehicle.
Each member of this congenial team had something to contribute. Ehab was our designated "provisioner" and stocked up on juice boxes, bottled water, and snacks each evening. Morad was the "gadget guy" who provided GPS readings to chart our progress. I brought maps; we all brought books.
Our itinerary was designed to include places of historical interest and sites of geological significance. Some were a certain way off-road and required a 4-wheel drive vehicle as well as considerable walking. May was an ideal month for this trip, falling between the busier tourist seasons of Easter and the summer vacation. As it turned out, the weather was perfect.
From the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel under the Suez Canal, the road eastward follows the ancient Darb Al-Hajj (pilgrim's route) leading across the peninsula towards Saudi Arabia. In the 12th century, Salaheddin Al-Ayyoubi built wells along the road and protected it with fortresses. The impressive ruins of one fort are still standing at Qal'at Al-Gindi, about 30 kilometres southeast of the Mitla Pass. The fort is perched on a high limestone cliff and has a commanding view of the countryside. Climbing to this ruin furnished a challenge on our first day, and helped prepare us for things to come.
After an overnight at the Ras Sudr Hilton, we set out again at 5am Shindi, our driver, knew all the desert tracks and was great at negotiating the ruts and dunes in his 4x4. That morning we headed south into the sandstone hills and valleys that lie in a horseshoe around the central limestone plateau. This region was the site of many ancient copper and turquoise mines.
On the top of the high sandstone plateau at Serabit Al- Khadem stands a temple dedicated to "Hathor, mistress of turquoise". We climbed to the summit from the southeast via a short but steep route, then descended towards the northwest on a gentler path that passed an old mine and several petroglyphs. On one-way hikes like this, Shindi would let us out and then drive around to meet us at the other end. Our group kept in touch with him using walkie-talkies, in case of emergencies. The total ascent was about 600m, and the mandatory Bedouin guide determined which route to follow after sizing up the capacities of the group. He must have decided we were in relatively good condition, because we reached the top in only 45 minutes, just half the time it had taken my group the previous year! The Hathor temple contains many stelae and commemorative statues, some of them dating back to the Middle Kingdom. While the others explored the inscriptions, I surveyed the scenery. Looking at the miles of emptiness, I thought about the hardships that the ancient miners must have endured in this bleak place.
After this extreme isolation our return to "civilisation" was very welcome. Here, as elsewhere in Sinai, the local Bedouins, displaying a combination of traditional hospitality and entrepreneurial talent, offer the weary hikers a shady retreat with cold soft drinks and handicrafts for sale. Later, the local sheikh welcomed us into the courtyard of his home, where we consumed our own box lunches washed down with glasses of his scalding tea.
From Serabit Al-Khadem, we drove southeast beneath the Tih escarpment to a place called the Forest of Pillars. We expected to discover a grove of palms or perhaps a petrified forest, but were instead surprised to come upon a dense cluster of black tubes ranging up to several metres in height and from one to 20 centimetres in diameter. At the time we were mystified, but we later learned the tubes are composed of hematite (a form of iron oxide). The iron oxide was dissolved out of the sandstone bedrock, to which it imparts a reddish colour, by hot water emerging from deep in the earth. As the water reached the surface and cooled, the iron oxide precipitated in a ring around each source, forming a tube.
From the Forest we headed southwest with Shindi finding his way unerringly among a maze of wadis and mountains. Our last stop was in Wadi Mukattab. Here, the walls of the wadi are covered with inscriptions many of which date back to the period 300 BC to 300 AD when the Nabataeans were long-distance traders between ports on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Continuing south, we joined the paved road through Wadi Feiran and hurried east towards St Catherine's Village.
St Catherine's Monastery and its associated religious sites have long attracted visitors. In 1996, the surrounding "high mountain region" was designated part of the St Catherine Natural Protectorate. It is now very popular with outdoor adventurers. Many outfitters offer multiple-day hiking and camping trips. Instead, we chose to stay at a comfortable hotel and explore the surroundings on day trips. The first day, we found an obliging local taxi driver to take us back to Wadi Feiran. Once he understood we wanted to study the scenery rather than just get to the other end as quickly as possible, he was very willing to drive slowly and respond to our frequent calls of wa'af or "stop". Then we all clambered out to take photographs and study the geology of the valley. The sheer wadi walls contain gneisses that are among the oldest rocks in the Sinai. Dating back to 630 million years ago, they were later fractured and intruded by molten rock that cooled to form the red and black dikes that criss-cross the walls.
We were also intrigued by a much younger sort of rock consisting of layers of sand, silt, and gravel up to 60 metres high. Some geologists hypothesise that the wadi was transformed into a series of lakes when it was blocked it at a number of narrow points, possibly by landslides. Between 60,000 and 12,000 years ago a wetter climate than today provided abundant run-off which carried sediment into the lakes. Eventually the dams in the wadi were eroded away, and the sediments themselves were washed off, except in a few places where they can still be seen along the valley walls. The Bedouins have cut chambers into the soft rock at ground level. In other places, they have placed their homes atop the sediments to protect them from flash flooding.
Many visitors to St Catherine's elect to climb Gebel Moussa (Mt Sinai). Instead, we chose to tackle a nearby peak: Gebel Abbas Pasha, named for the Egyptian Viceroy who ruled from 1848 to 1854. Abbas Pasha had ordered a summer retreat built atop this peak, but he died before the work could progress beyond the foundations. At an elevation of 2285m, Gebel Abbas Pasha towers over St Catherine's Village, which lies at 1550m. From below, we could see a tiny white spot atop the distant mountain, but our route would not be a direct one. Instead the trail led us in quite another direction, up and over a pass, down again, and then up through a series of connecting wadis, to eventually approach the ruins from the other side.
As we set out at 7am, we passed children heading towards a school housed in a set of modern buildings. Bedouins who work in the tourist industry live in this village of Al-Milga. Their neat stone houses all had satellite dishes, showing the degree to which they are now linked to the outside world. The morning was pleasantly cool and the breeze continued as we climbed higher. The trail at first ascended via a series of gentle switchbacks. The path is well designed and well maintained, but the coating of granite-grit that covered all the rocks made walking hazardous. Mahmoud took care to see that I did not slip and skin my elbows or knees.
The trail skirted huge boulders that had fallen from the surrounding cliffs. On one of these boulders many oval shapes were pecked into the dark surface. Our guides explained the old Bedouin custom in which a man, who was interested in a certain girl, carved the outline of his sandal. If she reciprocated his interest, she would carve the outline of her sandal. If her father approved the match, he would cut a circle around the pair of sandals. We looked in vain for pairs of linked sandals. Our young guide had probably used more modern methods to court his own girlfriend, and he often pulled out a mirror with an elaborately-beaded back that she had made him in order to adjust his headdress.
The gigantic rocks provided the only patches of shade where we could stop to catch our breaths and admire the view. At one of these stops a local Bedouin overtook us with his camel. While Mr Saad stopped to talk, the camel, carrying a coil of black plastic irrigation pipe, continued up the familiar path and around a large boulder where it sensibly paused in the shade to wait and chew its cud. We discovered that Mr Saad was the proprietor of a rest house where we would be able to take a welcome break on our way back down. There we enjoyed hot tea and cold soda, and purchased a camel bag hand- woven by his wife.
Like many other Bedouins, Mr Saad cultivated a garden in the mountain wadi. Here the bedouins grow almonds, olives, pomegranates, apricots, grapes, figs, walnut, and mulberries. The trees are supplied by the ground water that is naturally trapped in wadi sediments, as well as by run-off from snow melt that is collected at higher altitudes and brought to the gardens through an efficient system of plastic piping. High walls surrounded each garden, but not enough to block out the treetops, which provided a refreshing contrast to the barren rocks around us.
As we ascended Gebel Abbas Pasha from the south, we could see the stone ramps that Abbas's workmen had built to make a road to carry building materials to the summit. We sympathised with them since we found it difficult to carry even just ourselves and our backpacks up the last steep inclines. But our effort was worth it! From the ruins we could look down onto St Catherine's Village and out at the mountains in all directions. A cloudy haze prevented us from seeing as far the Tih Plateau to the north or the Red Sea to the south, but we could make out the black peak of Gebel Moussa slightly southeast of us and nearly 100 metres lower. At midday Gebel Moussa was deserted, since most visitors climb it at night to arrive in time for sunrise at the summit. Our peak was also empty, except for our small group, and we ate our lunches while savouring the harsh beauty and solitude. Some lizards and small birds accepted our crumbs; they were the only wildlife we saw on the trip. It was after 4pm when we arrived back at the hotel, exhausted but very proud of our accomplishments.
After four days, Shindi reappeared in his 4x4 for the next leg of our journey. We headed northeast out of the mountains into the eastern section of the sandstone belt. We stopped at another inscribed rock, where Ahmed told us that we had an interesting hike in store. As we descended the steep walls of a beautiful box canyon that opened out abruptly onto the sandstone plateau, we could see our destination about two kilometres ahead: an oasis at the spring of Ein Khodra. Four Bedouin women and a baby staffed a rest house there. They served us tea while we ate our lunch. They also spread a wide variety of handicrafts before Richard and me. Mahmoud urged us in a whisper to buy something from each woman. That night we relaxed in a man-made oasis in the Hilton Resort in Nuweiba. After the dry desert walks, we couldn't resist the lure of the sparkling blue waters of the Gulf of Aqaba.
From Nuweiba, we then set off on another adventure, first picking our way up a road under repair in the Wadi Watir. We could see how the occasional flash floods roaring down the wadi had torn out the road. We turned off onto a rough track that we dubbed Wadi Sheikh Mohamed, since by then our friend was suffering back pains from so much jolting. At the end of the wadi was another geological wonderland: the Coloured Canyon. This was the only place on our entire journey where we encountered other tourists, but we soon found ourselves wandering alone through the narrow valley. This was also the only site at which there were toilet facilities (though very simple ones) provided for visitors. The rest house offered a wide selection of beverages from a refrigerator powered by a diesel generator. Other amenities included several camels waiting at strategic spots to transport the weary hiker up a difficult incline.
The Coloured Canyon was carved in a narrow fracture by erosion. As we followed the twists and turns of the dry streambed, I could see how fast-flowing water, even though infrequent, had scoured the sides. These currents also carried boulders along the channel. Some of these had got wedged in narrow spots and we had to clamber over or wiggle under them. At one memorable spot a boulder had got caught at the top of a four-metre high chute. One-by-one we slid under the rock and down the chute to be caught by our friends below. We wondered what we would do if someone got stuck and decided that a few days of fasting would allow them to slide loose. When none of us suffered this humiliation, we felt we deserved the lunch Ehab had arranged at a wonderful fish restaurant in Nuweiba. There we were each presented with a plate overflowing with a freshly-fried fish, complete with head and tail.
The end of our Sinai adventure came too soon, and we started back towards Cairo in our red van. First we drove north along the Gulf of Aqaba, then at Taba we turned west to cross the wide barren Tih Plateau. Hour after hour I gazed into the flat limestone plateau with its scattered bushes marking the ephemeral watercourses that traverse the vast Wadi Al-Arish. The channels were invisible from the ground, but I had seen them clearly on satellite photographs before I left home. I thought again about pilgrims crossing this plain on foot or on camel and felt fortunate that I was speeding by in the comfort of an air-conditioned van. Modern transport and lodgings have made desert travel safe and convenient, and above all fun.
The writer is the author of A Traveler's Guide to the Geology of Egypt, the American University in Cairo press, 2003.
Getting about
By bus: from Cairo to Sharm El-Sheikh, services are at 6.30am, 7.15am, 10am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, 11pm, 11.30pm, 12am and 12.15am. Tickets for morning services LE45 for Egyptians and LE55 for foreigners; LE55 for night services for Egyptians and LE65 for foreigners.
From Cairo to Ras Sudr, there are services at 8am, 8.45am and 9.45am. Tickets LE15 for both Egyptians and foreigners. East Delta bus stations are located in Almaza and Turguman. Tel: 574 2814.
By air: Cairo-Sharm El-Sheikh, two flights a day at 7.30am and 8.30pm, round trip tickets: LE375 for Egyptians; LE900 for foreigners for a day return, LE1103 for up to a week, and LE1516 for trips of more than a week. Contact EgyptAir offices. Tel: 2657244, 390 3506.
