The Egyptian tourism machine swallows 12 million visitors a year and has turned Mount Sinai, one of the world’s most spiritual places, into one of the world’s biggest tourist traps. Each year about 230,000 people sign up for the usual tour; this involves waking in the middle of the night, getting into a bus in Dahab or Sharm el Sheikh, and climbing Egypt’s highest peak – where Moses is believed to have received the Ten Commandments – to share the sunrise with a crowd of tourists in inappropriate clothes and footwear clutching plastic water bottles, guidebooks and even howling babies. Back at the foot of the holy mountain, you cram into St Catherine’s Monastery, glance at its collection of icons, and wait for people to get out of the way so you can take an ironic picture of the “No Smoking” sign next to a giant desert bramble purported to be the original burning bush.
I’ve lived in Cairo, population 18 million, for nearly a decade. When I go on holiday a crowd is the last thing I want to see. And so, when the monastery closes at noon, and the convoy of vehicles speeding to the Red Sea coast and its world of sunbathing, snorkelling and discos clears out, I stay behind in the town of St Catherine, population 800. It turns out that it’s now possible to disappear into the mountains for days with a local Bedouin guide and connect with the Sinai’s spectacular landscape, ancient history, and indigenous culture.
My first stop is the office of Sheikh Sina, a European Union-funded tour company founded in 2006 to help the southern Sinai’s Bedouin tribes organise and professionalise the wilderness-guiding industry which dates back to the era of camel caravans. It later served early European explorers and got another kick-start when Israel occupied Sinai and brought with it settlers and tourists after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Regarded by many Egyptians from the Nile Valley as primitives who collaborated with Israel, the 20,000 strong Bedouin population has been marginalised from the beach resort industry that developed after Egypt regained full possession of the Sinai in 1982 and which now employs 400,000 people.
“Trekking has existed for a long time, but we’re trying to introduce a business model that has a future,” says Dave Lucas, Sheikh Sina’s 31-year old British operations manager. In addition to organising treks lasting for as long as one month, Sheikh Sina provides language education and emergency medical training to guides; is establishing mountain rescue protocols using GPS and aircraft from Sharm el Sheikh; and is teaching locals how to use computers for reservations and marketing. Sheikh Sina’s mandate – part of a US$83 million (Dh305m) EU initiative to improve infrastructure and socio-economic development in the Southern Sinai – is to hand the trekking operation over to Bedouin guides and managers by next year. It is also committed to expanding hiking programmes outside of the 4,350-square-kilometre St Catherine’s Protectorate, which is dominated by the Jabaliya tribe, and into the territories of the Tarabin, Muzeina, Howeitat, Tiyaha, Garasha, Sawalha and Awlad Said peoples. Given tribal politics, Egyptian government paranoia about security, opium growers, and the series of Red Sea Coast hotel bombings between 2004 and 2006, which north Sinai Bedouin were suspected of having carried out, that’s a hard plan to live up to.
Already, however, Sheikh Sina is attracting clients including Cairo residents on weekend trips like me, hard-core rock climbers, nature lovers who also want easy access to sun and fun in Egypt’s beach towns, and culture buffs who want to understand why Unesco designated St Catherine’s a World Heritage site in 2002.
“Oman and even Jordan have become Land Cruiser cultures whose people just want to drive you around in air-conditioned vehicles and entertain you between meals,” says Geoff Hornsby, 50, a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Geographical Society who has surveyed rock-climbing routes in Oman for that country’s tourism board. In 2007, Hornby hired Sheikh Sina to organise a 275km trek between Taba and El Tor that passed through Tarabin, Muzeina, Jabaliya and Awlad Said traditional lands. He saw tarmac just twice and changed guides and camels as he crossed each tribal boundary. “The Sinai is not an unexplored environment but it’s still one where you can experience the culture on an honest and basic level,” he tells me later, by phone from his home in Derbyshire, England, “It’s the rare place in the Middle East where you will find working camels and people still capable of walking many miles per day.”
Lucas introduces me to my guide for the next three days, Ragab Gabalah, 33, a former cameleer who used to spend all his mornings at the monastery trolling for tourists willing to pay $15 (Dh56) for an uphill camel ride. “On Gebel Mousa, it’s always up, down, hurry, hurry, hurry,” he sighs, using the Bedouin name for Mount Sinai. “I prefer trekking. You walk, sleep, eat with people and get to know them. Inshallah, Sheikh Sina will succeed. Many families will have work, and people who come from such a long way away to visit the Sinai can see the best part.”
A member of the Jabaliya tribe – which is made up of descendants of soldiers and farmers sent in the sixth century by the Byzantine emperor Justinian to support the monks of St Catherine – Ragab was born in a cave on the mountain where his pregnant mother tended goats. Having lived as a nomad until he was eight, he now lives in a house in St Catherine’s with his wife and two young children. Yet he remembers the old ways and promises to show me Bedouin “wedding places”, rock pools and a network of walled gardens hidden from the outside world. Carrying daypacks (a camel with more baggage and a guide will rendezvous with us later), we walk out of town up a steep, zigzagging path between pink granite cliffs, wind-sculpted sandstone and huge boulders. At the top of the first hill, Ragab shows me a mound of large stones over a pit – an old leopard trap. The big cats haven’t been seen in the Sinai since the 1980s, but ibex, hyenas, foxes and wolves – biological relics from the geological era when the Sinai Peninsula was joined to Africa and Asia – remain.
Our trail was laid in the 19th century by the soldiers of the tubercular Sultan Abbas Pasha, who ordered a palace built on the fresh-aired summit of Mount Tinya, but who died in 1854 (some say of poison) before it was completed. In the wadi beneath the palace ruins we pass the first in a network of gardens each protected from flash floods and grazing animals by high stone walls, sometimes surrounding a single, precious tree. From an aeroplane or from the motorway to Sharm el Sheikh, these mountains look barren, but suddenly there are almond trees pink with blooms, white-barked wild figs, carob, peach, pear, apple and quince. Lines of black plastic piping link the deep wells and cisterns from which the Jabaliya used to draw water with a shadoof and goatskins.
The Jabaliya or mountain people, Ragab tells me, descend from 200 families sent from Alexandria and Macedonia by the Byzantine emperor Justinian to protect, grow food for and provide manual labour for the monks of St Catherine; the monks in turn had followed the early Christian ascetics who moved into caves to escape persecution when Rome was still pagan. It was this group who, according to Ragab, began identifying the highest peaks with Old Testament stories about Moses’ flight from Egypt. The Jabaliya converted to Islam in the seventh century, a fact that did not lead to animosity with the monks, whose working relationship with the Jabaliya continues to this day. Indeed, the survival of the world’s oldest continuously functioning monastery, which was never looted, owes much to a gesture of tolerance from the Prophet Mohammed, who issued a letter of protection (signed with his handprint) that has been respected by subsequent invaders, including the Ottomans, Napoleon, the British and the Israelis.
The Jabaliya eventually intermarried with other tribes who fled Mameluke political strife in Cairo in the 15th to 17th centuries. The Egyptian government policy of settling Bedouin in towns has broken the old seasonal way of life, in which Jabaliya families lived in goat hair tents and moved with their herds from November to May, and spent the summer in the cooler mountains harvesting grain and fruit, which they traded for dried fish produced by Bedouin tribes on the Red Sea coast. Today, just 25 of the 400 or so known gardens are regularly maintained. Sheikh Sina staff, who are building two eco-lodges, hope an eventual network of eco-lodges will provide shelter for a hikers and an incentive for Jabaliya families to return to the 100 or so gardens whose fruit trees are still viable despite the decades of neglect.
Already, gardens provide a de facto infrastructure for hikers, offering springs and wells with clean drinking water and places to stop for lunch or spend the night. Ragab and I break for lunch in Wadi Zawatiin, where single-room stone houses are built against the boulders, and the olive trees are over 700 years old. Rubbish from last summer’s growing season is strewn in the deepest part of the wadi – abandoned rubber sandals, empty glass bottles and rags.
But when Ragab uses a fire-blackened sardine can to boil tea, and an old glass bottle to roll out a round loaf of bread that he bakes in the ashes of a fire, I see that what I consider rubbish is in fact a recyclable resource. “When you don’t have money to buy things, you use what you have, or invent new uses,” Ragab explains.
At the valley neck, we climb a col connecting Zawatiin to Wadi Itlah, where we’ll spend the night. It’s late January, and the cool daytime air is perfect for long-distance walking, but summer is also a popular time for treks; the col conceals a series of clear pools where hikers can take a refreshing dip. Sinai granite is among the oldest rock on earth; volcanic activity, which led to the separation of the Asian and Africa continents, left seams of porous black basalt, dykes that became catchments for winter rain and snowfall. Though the Sinai has been in a drought for the last six years, and many old wells have run dry, it’s possible to find water if you dig deep enough. We also see places, marked by greenery, where water springs like magic, dripping from bare rock.
Our stop for the night is a garden belonging to Ahmed Mansour, one of the last traditional doctors in the Sinai, who learnt to identify 270 medicinal plants from his grandfather. With EU help, he has installed a composting toilet for hikers and launched a gardening school to pass on his knowledge to local children. Not everything is going smoothly: the funding covered just five students, and Mansour has had to dig deep into his own pockets to support others, desperate for future employment, who arrived thanks to word of mouth. Mohammed, an 18-year old cameleer from St Catherine, arrives with our sleeping bags and firewood; and for dinner, Ragab makes a stew of chicken, tomatoes and rice seasoned with wild thyme plucked along the trail. We drink spring water boiled with crushed almonds and carob. It’s a sweet, milky concoction thought to be good for memory and eyesight. Night falls, and we turn in for bed, laying our sleeping bags on top of woven rugs and under thick blankets around the fire pit embers. I look up at the moonless night sky and see more stars than I have seen anywhere in my life, thanks to the absence of electric city lights and, perhaps, that Bedouin potion.
The next day’s walk takes us down the romantically named (or not) Naqb al Hoda or Pass of the Winds, part of the old caravan route linking Cairo, St Catherine’s and Mecca. In the shade of a giant boulder shaped like a crocodile’s gaping mouth, we meet a woman embroidering a red-beaded pouch for Fansina, a Bedouin-run women’s crafts collective in St Catherine. “It gives me something to do and a way to make money for my family,” Hoda Ibrahim tells us.
In the past women embroidered their own dresses and veils in bright colours and patterns, a product of tradition, nature, observation, and imagination, a visual code that revealed the wearer’s family, marital status and even, number of children. Hoda is wearing the plain black hijab and abaya of Cairo; she lives just down the valley in the village of Abu Sila. Above us, her three small girls wear bright red smocks and tracksuit bottoms as they tend three black goats and one white sheep. All stand out like jewels against the rock.
The pass descends and opens up onto a broad plain that leads us to Wadi Gharaba, named after its carob trees, and the six-room Al Karm eco-lodge, built in 2002 by a French-Egyptian architect inspired by round Neolithic stone structures called nawami that are scattered across the Sinai. There is an elegant solar-heated stone shower, but no electricity. The walls of my room have windows to let in daylight, candles set in niches, and while the only furniture consists of a wooden table, a thin mattress, mosquito netting pillows and heavy blankets, the place manages to achieve a less-is-more style more trendy than many so-called minimalist boutique hotels costing hundreds of dollars per night.
A room here costs less than US$7, (Dh26) per night. Even more unbelievably, I am the only guest and to make me feel more at home, the lodge owner and host, Gamil Attiya Hossein, who has gone into partnership with Sheikh Sina to attract more customers, invites Ragab and I to visit him in his house, only a 20-minute walk away. Gamil’s wife Firzena is sitting on the floor, brewing goats milk tea on a charcoal brazier for their five children, who are fighting over the remote control of the satellite TV that tourism has paid for. Made from breeze block, theirs is the largest house in the small village of Sheikh Awad, and soon cousins, sisters and uncles drop in to chat, sitting around the glowing brazier. “Today we no longer live in tents,” the 50-year old Gamil says. “But we still have a room called the maga’ad for people to sit around and talk.”
The Egyptian government supplies the village with six hours of electricity every day and tankers bring drinking water – adequate for basic family needs but far from enough for meaningful economic development. I ask Gamil about another EU project that will soon pipe Nile water from Ismaliya to St Catherine where, local rumour has it, a luxury hotel company wants to build a hotel in the plain below Mount Sinai. How will a regular water supply affect the old garden culture? “Just because we have new things, or more things, doesn’t make life easier,” he answers. “The carob trees near Al Karm have survived all this time because we Bedouin know how to conserve water. Our world has changed and is still changing. I tell my children and my guests that people who forget the past are lost.”
Back in Cairo, I feel lost myself, breathing in the polluted air, battling car traffic, grabbing money from a cashpoint. I cling to my memory of the mountain people and hope more outsiders will visit them.
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Back in Cairo, I feel lost myself, breathing in the polluted air, battling car traffic, grabbing money from a cashpoint. I cling to my memory of the mountain people and hope more outsiders will visit them.
We recently bought a place in South Sinai and I absolutely love it there too. We just came back 2 days ago and already I am aching to go back
The Bedouin who all live around us are so lovely. I had heard so many tales of them but we have been amazed at their friendliness. No staring like in Cairo. They seem much more polite. We have been a few times now to one of the village markets where the bedouin farmers sell the most beautiful fruits and veggies, and the 'fish man'is a scream, selling off the back of his Toyota like Del Boy in Peckam.
What's with them and Toyota pick up's???
They all wear the red kefaya and I have to say look so sexy and romantic in their gulf style galabeyas, rather than the usual Egyptian ones we see here in Cairo Stopped off at Oyun Musa and the kids surrounded the car were absolutely delightful and not one begging for cash!! they wanted to know if we had jumped in the springs and went to great lengths explaining the health benefits for skin diseases proper little tour guides about 9 years old.
It's a whole different world. Posts: 3416 | Registered: Oct 2007
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The joys of the Bedouin are not just in Sinai we are also blessed where we live West of Alex with wonderful Bedouin families that are so kind and caring and have adopted us as part of their family. One of their biggest jokes is to say their father married a white woman and I am his daughter. The only problem is to return hospitality as there is no way they will venture up our 8 floors as Bedouins always spend their lives living at ground level and are terrified to come up so high. They lead a very traditional way of life...and as for romantic what can I say I know one that leaves Omar Sharif in the shadows ..ahhh and yes the galabeyas are sexy and so is the black Merc that goes with it..phew!
Posts: 3809 | From: Paradise | Registered: Mar 2003
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Unfinished thought - you've spent more time making fancy smilies than clicking on the link and seeing pictures. Maybe you need to get your priorities right.
Posts: 29 | From: Cairo | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Penny: The joys of the Bedouin are not just in Sinai we are also blessed where we live West of Alex with wonderful Bedouin families that are so kind and caring and have adopted us as part of their family. One of their biggest jokes is to say their father married a white woman and I am his daughter. The only problem is to return hospitality as there is no way they will venture up our 8 floors as Bedouins always spend their lives living at ground level and are terrified to come up so high. They lead a very traditional way of life...and as for romantic what can I say I know one that leaves Omar Sharif in the shadows ..ahhh and yes the galabeyas are sexy and so is the black Merc that goes with it..phew!
They really are so lovely,and don't stare or hassle the women like in other parts of Egypt. Hubby said it is because they are so traditional and respectful of their women. I couldn't believe that walking through their market they never hassled, and tried to avoid any obvious eye contact with me. It just felt so comfortable being a woman there in their company.
Really I didn't know they don't like to go above ground level..hmmmm
First thing I bought at their market was a red kefaya!! Wrapped it around hubby and now all I have to do is try to get him into a thobe!!
OMG!! they are just oozing sex appeal in that clobber ( where is the slurp smiley?)
I think I will get out of the packing all my art stuff and do some drawing and painting. The scenery and people will be great subjects.
Great inspiration
No pic's UF but I might send you one of my drawings when I get round to it Posts: 3416 | Registered: Oct 2007
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Yes they are very respectful of their women and also very protective. In many families the women hardly venture out and if they do it has to be with their husbands’ permission. I was a bit shocked when I invited some of the ladies for a day at the beach with me and they said they would have to ask their husband's first. But still that is their normal way of life for them.
Sometimes it nice that the protection also extends to me but it's a bit of a pain if I go out for a walk as if anyone bothers me I get picked up and taken back to our building and I can't then carry on with my walk without upsetting them. But I can honestly say these are the nicest people I have met in Egypt and feel very privileged to have them as friends.
They are also deeply religious, last year they paid for the mosque at the bottom of our building to be finished. It wasn't their responsibility to but they just stepped in a paid and organised for it all to be done.
As for hubby in that atire...nope it doesn't do it for me, I complain if he wears a galibaya in the summer! some things look right on some people and for others it just doesn't work.
Happy drawing and keep your mind on the subject at hand ! Posts: 3809 | From: Paradise | Registered: Mar 2003
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As for hubby in that atire...nope it doesn't do it for me, I complain if he wears a galibaya in the summer! some things look right on some people and for others it just doesn't work. --------------------------------------------------
I agree Penny, ^^^^
The bedouin we met in Sinai where lovely also. The women, children and men were all very respectful and kind.
Wish i could be there right now Posts: 895 | Registered: Sep 2007
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