Tracygosnow's travel blogs:
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Colored and White Canyons
Entry 32 of 53 | show all | print this entry |
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I had been wanting to get out into the desert for quite some time as the landscape here is so beautiful. It's funny how Hollywood can shape impressions sometimes. When I first came to Egypt, I was expecting the desert to miles of soft white sand dunes that I'd seen in movies. I was quite surprised as to how very mountainous it is in these parts. Well, if you remember from science class...the earth was once largely water. I'll skip all the rest because if you don't remember it, shame on you! Anyways, Sinai was also once all under water which makes for some interesting geography.
We drove in a Land Cruiser about 1.5 hours north along the coast to Nuweiba (this is the port that offers the crossing to Aqqaba, Jordan). Here you make a sharp left turn straight into the desert. Another bumpy hour ride brought us to the Colored Canyon. Now, I am one of a few shameful Americans who has never been to the Grand Canyon, regardless of the fact that I live fairly close by plane to this wonderful place. Anyways, the Colored Canyon here is perhaps the same as the Grand Canyon but on a slightly smaller scale. But it's still very large and covers a great expanse of land.
The Canyon was absolutely amazing! You walk along the canyon on wadis, which is Arabic for a dried up water bed. Weaving your way through narrow passes with huge sandstone-type walls all around you is just breathtaking. This Canyon got its name because of the colors that you can see all around you: ochre red, blue, yellow, green, etc. These intricate colored designs in the mountains are remnants of what were once coral reef!! It was just unreal to walk along the wadis and know that it was all once under water and full of colorful life. The eight of us were the ONLY people in the entire place and the quiet eeriness made it that much more exciting. I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie the entire time (thanks again Hollywood). Anyways, we spent about 2 hours total walking through the canyon.
We drove back out to the main road and headed out into the desert once again in a different direction. Just last year there was a terrible flood in Sinai. It rains perhaps one day each year here and only a few hours at that. But because the rain is so random, any time it does rain they experience massive and devastating floods. We passed by what was once a beautiful oasis that was wiped out by last year's flood. You could still see the dry and hardened earth that is usually sand but shows evidence of the floods. Along the way we got to play a game of chicken with a camel (now how many of you out there can say you've done that?!) There were two camels heading towards us in the dirt path and while one got of the way, the other decided it wasn't going anywhere! It charged our vehicle and then just stared at all of us staring back at him. The driver honked the horn but it just stood there as if saying "yeah, what are you going to do about it?!" So we reversed and went around him.
We got to our oasis where we were to have lunch. I have to say that thanks again to Hollywood, my first oasis was a huge disappointment. It is obvious as in the midst of the desert is a large area of palm tress and lush green vegetation. But I was expecting naturally flowing pools of crystal blue water to be about and there wasn't. An oasis occurs because of a source of underground water. So we got to see the cave where the source of the water was, so I guess that was cool. Anyways, some Bedouins had made the oasis their business and were selling handicrafts and the like and charged the group a fee for using the area to lunch at. There was a strange sign posted in one of the eating areas that made you wonder if you were in fact at a zoo of some sort (you can see the sign in the photo album)...just shows you again how tourism has drastically changed the way of life for the Bedouin people. They also had built a large concrete square in which was a pool of water that you could swim in for 5 LE.
After lunch we made our way into the White Canyon. This one differed from the Colored Canyon in that the floor of this canyon was covered in fine white sand...evidence of its more recent relationship with changing water patterns. The sand made the canyon walls glisten in the sunlight. Our journey through it was made more interesting by some large parts of the canyon that had crumbled due to an earthquake. So it was a challenging journey climbing over boulders and having to work your way through thick soft sand in tennis shoes. Walking in sand has got to be the most awkward thing in the world and no one looks attractive doing it. The end of the walk through this canyon meant climbing a hardly stable ladder and then trying to manage up some flat faced rocks. But once you got to the top, you were in the greatest expanse of desert with interesting rock formations all around you.
Anyways, I know the photos won't do it justice but you can check them out in the photo album. It's just unreal to see the beauty that Mother Nature gives us and what can come from chaos. More thumbnails ...
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