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Mons Smaragdus
A quick tour in Wadi Gimal National Park
(Egypt)
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Wadi Gimal, near the coast
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The Wadi Gimal National park is
constituted by two different zones; the nearly flat area
near the coast, 5 to 6 kilometers wide, and the rugged
mountain range extended to the west up to the Nile Valley.
The two zones are separated by a major fault that appears on
the satellite images as a clear cut boundary. This is an
extensional fault generated by the active rifting process
that created the Red Sea Basin and is giving birth to a new
ocean as the African and Arabian plates progressively
separated from each other.
Clastic and evaporitic deposits (gypsum at the weathered
surface – green patches on the Landsat Zulu RGB composite)
of Miocene age outcrop along the low relief coastal area.
The largest part of the coastal plain is covered by the
spreading fluvial-fan deposits of Wadi Gimal and the
northern wadis draining the Red Sea mountains. |
| The coastal zone can be easily explored
by foot starting from the Shams Alam Hotel. The coast,
bordered by the coral rift is a nice and still pristine
natural environment vegetated by mangroves, with scattered
acacias and few palms, featured by small sand dunes
partially fixed by halophyte plants. We hope the park will
effectively preserve these few kilometers from the massive
development that is converting Marsa Alam in big tourist
city like Hurgada or Sharm el Sheik. For the time being the
Wadi Gimal coast is still a place reserved to the birds, the
occasional grazing camels and the few Beduins that practice
a very limited kind of subsistence fishing. |
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The Wadi Gimal coast
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Calotropis procera
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The terraced deposits of the large
fluvial fan complex are vegetated by many acacias nicely
sculpted by the cool wind, ever blowing from the NNE, that
makes the climate acceptable in spite of the scorching sun.
Especially in November, the climate is pleasant and it is
easy to walk without suffering any inconvenience, without
the need of backpacking a lot of water. It is like the best
weather you can enjoy on the Mediterranean Sea at the June
end. In plain word November is the best moment to be there.
The only cons of the place is the early sun-set; at 16.30
the sun is already below the mountain range an by 17.00 it
is dark.
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| The last part of the Wadi Gimal course
is very wide and open, it host a lot of grass and even some
plants that are quite interesting even if not truly rare in
this corner of the World like this small three featured by a
bark resembling cork, a well grown exemplar of Calotropis
procera. Actually the Calotropis procera is not
rare being widespread from Africa to Asia and it is even
invasive in countries where it was accidentally released in
the wild. In fact, its seeds easily propagates by wind and
water. Known as the Sodom Apple, it is a toxic plants full
with many chemicals substances. In the past, substances
extracted from this plants were used in the popular
pharmacopoeia to cure leper, syphilis, dental |
Calotropis procera
Flowers
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Ababda Girl
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decay and other diseases or to prepare
poisons or insecticides. This plant is commonly seen as a
brush but in favorable condition it can grow as a small
three. The exemplar of the picture is a sort of champion,
bearing flowers and fruits at the same time.
The Shams Alam tourist resort is imposing to the area a
population made of 100-200 tourists plus about 50 or more
Egyptian workers all coming from Qena. Not surprisingly the
Wadi Gimal National Park has a nearly stable original
population made of Ababda Bedouins living in semi-permanent
villages, half hidden in the wadis around the hotel. |
The majority of tourists are interested
only in sea and sun or in scuba diving and rarely move out
of the hotel fence. Anyway Bedouins did a very discrete
attempt to get some money the barely need from tourist and
just aside the hotel beach Bedouins girls and boys sell to
the tourist their handcrafted bijouterie while the Adult
organized a hut to offer the Shisha experience to the
occasional smoker.
It is easy to spot on the park beaches the camels grazing
the thorny acacias; it is very impressive to observe how
they can eat the green small leaves protected by thorn that
are as hard and sharp as iron nails that can easily
perforate a car tire. |
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A camel grazing a thorny acacia
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Fox footprints on desiccated clay
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In the desert, as usual, is quite
difficult to spot the existing wildlife but it is very easy
to find footprints almost everywhere. It also easy to
understand what animal played left its signature but it is
nearly impossible to assess how many individuals were living
on the spot; sometimes a single individual can cover with
its footprints an entire region as it happens with the last
two surviving waddans in the Gilf Kebir. On the desiccated
clay covering the Wadi Gimal bottom 2km up from the beach we
found these very nice footprints attributable to a desert
fox. |
| However, the true noble heart of the
Wadi Gimal National Park is in its upper course through the
old metamorphic and granite rocks constituting the Eastern
Desert mountain range concealing in its intricate system of
meandering wadis the ancient emerald mines of Mons
Samaragdus, ancient Roman villages and mining structures.
The park rules forbid to drive in Wadi Gimal with 4x4 cars
unless you have a special permit. With a normal permit,
released at the park administration centre, it is possible
to reach the archaeological sites from the south, travelling
along a sequence of small wadis connected by low relief
passes. |
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Wadi Abiat or White Wadi
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Following the wadi entering the Sea at
Sharm el Lula (a deep bay with a very nice beach) it is
possible to cross the upper Wadi Gimal course in
correspondence with the Wadi Abiat, Wadi Nugrus and Wadi
Sikkait confluences.
The southern route to Sikkeit avoiding the lower Wadi Gimal
track is quite difficult to track unless you have a very
good local guide or a detailed GPS track to follow. Of
course, we hired a professional Bedouin guide with the usual
old-fashioned and powerful Toyota Landcruise. Anyway our
guide had some doubts and did some mistakes. He refused to
believe that with my small inconspicuous GPS device I was in
a good position to alert him when he was wrong and I was
able to point him the right track to follow. He protested he
was born in the region but finally, in front of an
impassable cliff, he had to scornfully admit that I was
right and he was wrong. |
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