Whale Bones in the Desert

On Christmas Eve we were invited to go with some friends out to the desert.  We went to an area about an hour outside of Cairo where you can see ancient whale bones.  The Sahara at one point was covered in sea water and there are many different fossils left scattered all over the desert.

On the way we stopped to see Egypt's only waterfall:

The picture doesn't allow you to put it into perspective, but it was only about 12 feet tall— a cute, little waterfall.  Still, it's not something you normally see in the middle of a desert!

I must say I was initially a bit underwhelmed when we got to the whale bones.  They were not the huge blue whale ribs that I expected to see popping out of the sand.  Being ancient whales, they were much smaller, about 6-10 feet long total.

There were also some turtle fossils:

It was nice to see a site in Egypt where ancient treasures are being cared for and preserved.  A sharp contrast to another fossil site we visited in Siwa where we were allowed to simply pick up and walk away with equally ancient shells!