Photo : Ahmed Emad Hamdy — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sinai · Nuweiba, Sinai
Coloured Canyon
A sandstone corridor with yellow and purple walls, and passages you take sideways.
Inland, behind Nuweiba, water has cut a slot several hundred metres long into the sandstone, in places a metre wide. The bands of colour — yellow, rust, brown, purple — come from iron and manganese oxides held in the rock, and they shift through the day, depending on what the sun reaches. You go in from the top and work downwards, stepping over a few drops and easing between the walls, until you come out into an open valley. It is neither long nor technical, but it is one-way: the vehicle picks you up at the bottom, not where you went in.
The extra bit
Aim for mid-morning: earlier and the floor stays in shadow and the colour does not come out; later and the track and the waiting in the sun become the main memory.
Know before you go
This is no trip for a saloon car: the track needs a 4×4 and someone who knows where to turn off, and the canyon is walked with a guide, with the car waiting at the bottom. A narrow slot is a flood channel: if it has rained anywhere on the plateau, you do not go down it, blue sky overhead or not. Bring your own water, a hat and closed shoes: there is not always anything to drink at the start of the walk, and the phone does not reach everywhere. The trip is often sold together with Ain Khudra oasis and a stop with Bedouin hosts: ask whoever sells it to you what the price includes, before you get in the car.
