11-02-2009

After a long time we succeed in organizing a walking trip to northern fringes of the Gilf Kebir. We succeed thank to a faithful group of friends.

Today the Gilf Kebir is a National Park. This sound good, too good to be true. What does it mean? Iit simply means that the natural and historical value of the region is officially recognized. For the time being there is no sort of management nor rangers neither rules to avoid pollution and over-exploitation of the place. Actually the Gilf Kebir is no more the "Paradise of fools" it was in the '30. It is now a popular tourist destination, heavily frequented, a spot of high economic value and at present a lot of people is making a living by escorting tourist in "the last unexplored places". Like the Maldive Islands, the Gilf Kebir hosts thousands of tourists in its once "uncontaminated" reaches. Nothing particularly wrong in that: it is business as usual promoted by advertising as usual. The paradox is noted only by the fews (like us) we thought he fascination of the Gilf Kebir was essentially in its lowliness. For the people nurturing this kind of feelings a large amount of the Gilf Kebir beauty is lost for ever down the drains...

Countless tracks of 4x4 cars near the Lama-Monod Pass

Clearly nobody can pretend to convert the Gilf Kebir into a personal preserve nor into the playground for an elite of tourists like it was in the old gold days. Some well-known professional archaeologists did an attempt to exclude every tourists from the area (with sound reasons) but they got the opposite results. Actually, Egypt needs more jobs. More tourism is the answer. We can only look back with nostalgia to the pre-mass-tourist era but we can not prevent the economic development of the area nor consider it an anaivoidable disaster. Nevertheless we do hope the Gilf Kebir National Park will be managed in the future according to the best practices of the best managed Natural Park elsewhere in the World. It is in the realm of possibility. A realistic police will be to limit 4x4 cars to the already established net of tracks. The opening of new tracks should be forbidden. The licensed operators could enforce a more environment friendly tourism by acting as guides and rangers at the same time. All the places outside the presently established car tracks should be visited by foot.
Is it a realistic proposal? Yes, it is and we think it is also a very enjoyable one.

Walking toward Almasy's Hill, trying to ignore the pollution of the once unchartered sands

During late October 2009 we successfully organized our trip to the northern fringes of the Gilf Kebir. We regularly left aside the cars and guides we hired to do our hikes. We walked as far as it was possible, sometimes to reach some inconspicuous hillock, sometimes along well planned route, carefully studied at home on satellite images, exploiting the best GPS and Geographic Information System software available. We walked and walked...

Walking downhill along a Wadi Hamra tributary, where 4x4 cars can not pass

Due to the poor respect toward the environment of many 4x4 drivers, it is normal to find track practically everywhere in the Gilf Kebir National Park. Hundreds of prehistoric sites have been destroyed by wandering idiots that were not contented of staying within the tracks opened by the true original explorers of the region.

We decided to hike along the narrowest stony wadis of the Gilf Kebir. We were looking for ancient path, stone structures and also for rock art. Until to a very recent past the Gilf Kebir was a gigantic archaeological site, a sort of prehistoric archive or an open air museum open to everybody. After year of reckless mass-tourism a large part of this heritage has been destroyed by cars. By walking we got the privilege to see the Gilf Kebir as the first explorers did, even if we were pretty late visitors. Hopefully, if by chance somebody will visit in the future the identical spots we visited during our Gongoi Expedition, he will be not deprived of the same feelings we experienced. We did not touch anything, we did not leave anything. Our footprints were too shallow to be memorized for became permanent features of the place.

Walking within a unnamed wadi east of Wadi Hamra, leaving only footprints

We forbid our drivers to follow us. We reached a large wadi that , by chance, is cut-off from the regular tours constrained by the usual two-weeks programmes. We soon realized we were walking through a Neolithic open air museum. Pottery and bones... A single car will suffice to destroys it....

Walking atop the Gilf Kebir

The top of the Gilf Kebir is a really empty place where you walk in the middle of nowhere aiming at nowhere. The landscape looked like as it was from an extraterrestrial planet. However, it has been hard to find a place not spoiled by 4x4 cars, it has been hard to shot a picture in low angle light that did not reveal tyre tracks. We had to climb on buttes or very isolated mesas to find the pristine landforms of the Gilf Kebir top originally enjoyed by Bagnold in 1938. We can say it was worth the effort and we are now proud to have walked some tens of kilometres of the flat plateau surface in its best conditions. Hey, please, stop to ruin the desert! Please, keep your tyres in the established tracks.

A prehistoric settlement on the Gilf Kebir top

The most important target of our 2009 expedition was a prehistoric settlement on the top of the Gilf Kebir we had previously identified. We have written a report about the surfacial findings of this site we hope to publish on a scientific magazine.