Nabq Protactorate, Sharm el Sheikh, South Sinai

My daughter enjoying the sea

Some days ago, I was a little bit free and decided to explore some areas of Sharm el Sheikh. As we live in Nabq bay, I decided to go to Nabq Protectorate to explore the area especially I have never been there before. Nabq is famous for its big colony of Mangrove trees, the biggest in fact is in Indian Ocean. Yes, they are a lot there, not like Ras Mohammed, where there is just a small channel with trees
http://www.sharm-club.com/ras_mohamed.php

So in the morning, before the main heat I took my family, we got into our 4x4 Tiguan and moved to the destination. Well, the entrance or exit is just 10 minutes drive from our home, near el-Farana Heights hotel and behind Tiran hotel. So in 10 minutes we had to stop near a police check point and a ticket book-office to buy tickets. As we are considered to be locals, tickets were just 5LE per person + car. For tourists 5$ per person but from the 1st April will be 40LE.
My husband stayed around 10 more minutes discussing with the sales-man the situation, if someone comes to the area and so on. At the end we got some promotional booklets as being a Travel company.

We entered Nabq Protectorate and moved ahead, on the next check point we found some tourists on quads, having their Quad-biking adventure (http://www.sharm-club.com/quad_biking_sharm.htm), I thought about the same, to offer it to our guests, but later changed my mind. We moved deeper into the protectorate to discover nice places and beautiful beaches as I expected but I was really disappointed to see all that dirtiness, plastic pockets, trash and other things along the shore, and they call it PROTACTORATE! Ras Mohammed (http://www.sharm-club.com/ras.htm), if compare to Nabq is so clean and nice place to visit.

A group of bicyclists passed by us, they were coming back already :) Very good idea to explore the area on bicycles.

Mangroves

There is a nice, sandy beach in the beginning of the protectorate, but Bedouins or fishermen build huts along the shore and spoiled all the view as well as the beach, plastic pockets are everywhere. Than deeper inside the protectorate the cleaner the area in fact. As no one stays deep inside the area shore becomes cleaner and nicer to walk along, you can see some rare birds, such as osprey. I had an opportunity twice to take a close shot of the bird! but twice when i was ready to shoot it flew away. I took some pictures of them on the nest, there is a special area where some nests are equipped for the birds.
http://www.sharm-club.com/birds.htm

Maria Shroder ship wreck

Another interesting place of Nabq is a ship wreck of Maria Shroder, you can come very close to it to see the remains of the ship: "On 11 April 1956, while enroute from Aqaba, Jordan to West Germany, the ship ran aground on a reef at Nabq at position 28.10N/34.30E. Attempts to refloat the ship were unsuccessful and she was declared a total constructive loss." .
For Divers: The Wreck Today: The wreck of the Maria Schröder lies atop the reef approximately 100-meters offshore from what is now the Nabq Protactorate. Most of the ship is still above water with a debris trail located on the starboard side of ship which leads down to a depth of about 24 meters. At the base of the wreck in the surrounding coral there is a wide variety of aquatic life to be seen. The site is popular with bird-watchers and snorkelers and is on the tour route for local tourist agencies. Should you wish to visit it just book Tiran island boat trip from Sharm el Sheikh (http://www.sharm-club.com/tiran.htm)

Visitors center, view from the beach

Then we decided to visit Visitors center, my husband remember that when some years ago, around 5 years in fact, when he was used to come here as a guide, Visitors center was really an interesting place to come, to see its museum and to get some useful info. Now the center is abandoned, absolutely! We crossed the see or small lagoon to check the center and found abandoned building, I climbed up to see some panoramic views of the sea, saw some mangrove cannels ahead and the desert. 

Mangroves, how they grow

We continued after the Visitors center to another area of Mangroves,  my husband wanted to drive us as close to the trees as possible but when we moved along the shore and came close to the mud he noticed something strange … black spots started to move…. When I got out of the car and walked toward the trees I discovered that all the area, sand, mud… all is in halls, small crabs are living in the halls, but when we came closer they all disappeared. Later on we saw them again, we started to move with the car and saw from far away how black dots disappearing very fast, crabs were taking their claw away, hiding themselves down. Sometimes you can see it in Ras Mohammed as well, but not in SUCH quantity! Will be very interesting to put camera to take a video.

Spring, everything is blooming, even the desert!

On the way back we passed some nice plants blooming already in the middle of the desert. About flora of Egypt you can read on our site (http://www.sharm-club.com/flora.htm)

In general, it was a nice discovery, we saw something new but not virgin already as I expected, spoiled by people in fact, but if you are a bird watcher, then yes, it is a place to visit especially in the season you can find many birds there to watch. 

Fossil, I do believe, I found in the sea

Walk from Bab el Futuh to Bab el Nasser,
Babylon Fortress discovery &  Nilometre uncovered

Bab el Naser, old Cairo city gate

                                                                                                                                                       

Yesterday, before coming back to Sharm el Sheikh I decided to take Cairo city tour and to visit places I went before, around 5 years ago and see how they changed since that time. Honestly, they changed a lot, some to better some to worse, some lost their authentic atmosphere, became more touristic destinations then before. But let us start from the beginning.

In the morning as it was Friday, the city was really empty, so we could reach so many places just in a couple of hours. I took my hubby and daughter and we went to Khan el Khalili area, but this time I did not want to enter from the bazaar, I decided to take a tour from one Cairo city gate to another, exactly from Bab el Foutuh to Bab el Nasser via street called el Muaz el Din. The street is known for its Islamic monuments, old mosques and sabils, beautiful nobles houses. So we started from el Hakim mosque toward el Hosein area. The street now is clean and paved, became wider then some years ago when I was there last time. Now cars can pass by, so not that safe place to walk became, but still it is the place to be and to discover all those sabils, kuttabs and madrasas. Just to see the changes and take pictures as I lost my pictures archive recently, we spent one hour walking around.

Bab el Futuh, Old Cairo city Gate

Our next destination was Old Cairo, it is really close to Khan el Khalily area, so we took just 15 minutes to reach our next destination. The place surprised and amazed me at the same time, so many changes, and all to the better. Old Cairo is famous for its Christian monuments such as Hanging church el Mualaka, St George and St Barbara churches. Also you will find ancient synagogue there. But again, the aim was not the Christian monuments, the aim was more ancient place, fortress known as Babylon! I do believe you heard about it (remember the TV series Babylon 5? :)) At last I saw the ruins of this famous fortress, shame to me, I visited Old Cairo so many time but could not do a couple of steps to see the fortress.

The remains of Fort Babylon, Old Cairo, Egypt

And now the place arranged better with easier excess to the monuments than some years ago when I was there. There is a wide and cars free street along which you can easily walk and observe huge churches. Entrance to all churches here is free of charge and you will always find there Egyptian Copts, especially they are many on weekends. So, our goal was reached.

I took a lot of pictures and we moved to another very interesting location. I heard about the location, I read about the location, I even passed by the location but never entered! It was my mistake, to wait for so many years before I discovered the place, amazing place called Nilometre.

Nilometre, view from inside, from down

Nilometre is situated in a very distant place, not on touristic trap at all and is not that easily to be reached, we spend around 1 hour searching for it, even Google maps did not help us, we passed by so close, but still could not find the entrance! At last, after so many circles around Manial island, where the building is located we could manage to find the entrance to the place. To tell the truth, the time, wasted to reach the location worth every minute. Nilometre is amazing, very unique structure and deserves to be on touristic maps. I will just tell you that the structure was used to measure the Nile, to see if there will be flood or no. And the unique feature of the structure is that exactly here the 1^st time in Egypt Kufic script was used for inscriptions. Here are some pictures to get the idea.

On the way home, we passed by one more interesting structure, but pictures unfortunately are not that good as the structure is situated on a busy highway, so not that easy to take good picture. I am talking about Aqueduct. It was use to bring water to the Citadel of Salah el Din from the Nile. The structure remains is long enough and very well shown from many streets, you can pass by it easily, but again – not a touristic trap.

Aqueduct, to the right side

More pictures later on I will put in the album
in my Google + profile, do not miss it.

Marsa Alam Discovery

In February my family and I went to South of Egypt to discover new places for potential business. Our targeted destination was Marsa Alam, South od Egypt, 350 km far from Hurghada. We took it by road, from Sharm el Sheikh in one day, via Suez city, the 1st time I saw Suez canal from another side, very beautiful in fact, unfortunately I did not take any pictures, hope next time to have camera by my hand. So we moved in the early morning, passed Suez city, Hurghada, Safaga and then by evening reached Marsa Alam. We stopped for some days in a nice hotel Resta Resort. It is situated not in Marsa Alam exactly, but around 25 km far from it and just 1 km far from the International airport of Marsa Alam which we also explored and had even some problems with security there:) As we were really tired we left city exploration for the next day.

So in the morning after the breakfast we got in our jeep and forwarded to Marsa Alam city, honestly there is no city as we understand it and as we expected to see it. But we saw much more than just a "city", as so called Marsa Alam city is located around 20 km far from the hotel we stayed it took some time to reach the destination, and the area we passed by was really great. Not that many places in Egypt still have virgin nature, sandy empty beaches, long white sandy beaches and NO ONE around. Hotels there are located some km far from each other, so between them you still find long shore, you can stop any minute, get off your car and swim in the red sea, as it was February, we did not want to try that option as it was really cold and windy (for us, locals) but we saw several brave divers who did it :)In fact that were the only people we met on our way to Marsa Alam city. We reached the city fast enough but did not actually find anything in the city, some shops, some buildings, hotels along the shore, unfortunately all hotels were closed or unfinished, so no guests at all. The area in general reminds Sharm el Sheikh 10 years ago, when we just moved there: few hotels along the shore, long distance between them and no people and entertainments at all. There is still no development for the area, hope our new government will pay some attention to this great area with such potential for tourism. Now only brave and lazy tourists, who wants to relax and go nowhere just to the beach come to the area. But there is a big plus of the area! It is very warm there even in winter, as it is more to the south than Sharm el Sheikh, very close to Luxor and other Upper Egypt attractions.
There is a nice place worth mentioning called Port Ghibli, aimed more for Arab than European tourists. There area has some famous hotels inside, shopping promenade and artificial lagoon for yachts parking (sorry, do not really know how it's called in English exactly). So, if you have your own yacht you can come to Port Ghibli for holidays. There is also similar yacht parking in Taba Heights.
So, all in all, for now there is still nothing to do in Marsa Alam, just relax on a private beach of your hotel and no go around at least for the next 5-10 years. The nearest place (350 km far from the area) is Hurghada where you can have a lot of entertainments.