The Gilf Kebir - Wadi Soura and the Mestikawy cave

At 900metres high, souring up from the flat desert is the astounding major plateau known as the Gilf Kebir. This is where Laszlo Almasy, the real life character on whom ‘‘The English Patient’’ was based,
discovered, or, more accurately, rediscovered the caves containing pictures of the famous swimmers.



Nearby is the Mestikawy Cave, found in 2002 on an expedition led
by Colonel Ahmed Mestikawy, considered the largest single site of rock art in Africa. It contains an amazing quantity of pictures of animals long since extinct here such as giraffesand baboons. The art here is accurately dated by the last time there was any water in the region- 5000- 7000 years ago.