First published: 18/12/18.

Michael Anak Kenyalang 5.0

Wadi Al-Hitan

Wadi Al-Hitan (Inscribed)

Wadi Al-Hitan by Michael anak Kenyalang

I visited this WHS in April 2017 on the day before leaving Egypt. I'm an amateur paleontologist and fossil collector, so visiting Wadi Al-Hitan was already in my plan besides seeing the ancient civilization. Since collecting Natural WHS is harder than the cultural one, I was determined to put this on my list as it's not too far from Cairo. 

But it wasn't easy at all. Because I was traveling alone, all the travel agencies at the Tahrir Square could only put me in the waiting list for a bigger group. I was lucky when a group of 7 foreign students studying in Cairo University decided to join the tour. So we took off quite early in the morning as the journey to the first stop took a solid 3 hours. The first stop was a place with a lot of round rocks formation where they called it "watermelons". At this desert site you can clearly see the mark of ancient water flow. Then we went to the on site museum where you could see the evolution of the whale (Basilosaurus isis) where the small hind limbs still attached to the big body. The in situ fossils are just next to the museum with numbers along the path. Besides the whale fossils you can also notice a lot of sand dollar fossils around. In my opinion this is a very educational fossil site even for an ordinary person as one can imagine how the environment and life was long ago. 

All in all I think this is a very interesting site and WHS one shall not missed. 

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