Sinai Bedouin beach camp accommodation, Egypt
| country: | Egypt |
| location: | Mahash, South Sinai |
| price: | From €199 - €219 per person per week, half board. From €229 - €249 per person per week, full board. Price depends on choice of vegetarian or fish/meat meals. Children under 13 sharing accommodation from €70 - €105 per week. Daily rates also available from €28 - €36 |
| vouchers: | Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday |
description
You can decide yourself whether you want to spend your holiday relaxing on the white beach, diving, kite-surfing, snorkeling or making exciting trips to Gebel Musa, oases and canyons. All this is possible here in Mahash! The sea is just wonderful here, the water is clear and you can snorkel for corals and colourful fishes. It is also good for small children, that can't swim yet. There is a magical laguna, where you will see the interaction from sun, moon, earth and water each day. You can sleep outside your husha under the starry sky if you like. Watch the sunrise above the mountains of Saudi Arabia from your bed. Get to know the bedouins and people from all over the world and in the night you will sit around the campfire and drink hot, sweet delicious bedouin tea.
special things to do and see here
The special wind conditions in Mahash allow you to kite most of the year and enjoy this “air conditioning by nature” during the hot months. There are also several PADI diving centers around so you can have this experience even without your own equipment. There are many places worth seeing in Sinai like the oases, wadis and canyons and biblical sites like Gebel Musa, Wadi Feiran, Serabit el Khadem etc. Here three religions find their roots. There are also the natural protected areas such as Ras Abo Galloum where you will get a new impression from the colour 'blue'. Plan your trips individually with the bedouins, it's possible to go by camel, jeep or on foot. The city Nuweiba is only 15 min away. Here you will find Internet cafes, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacy, hospital, police, laundry, banks and the port with a ferry that goes twice a day to Aqaba, Jordan.
Other activities at the camp include: rooms, food and facilities
The hushas are located directly on the wonderful beach. They are simple, but cosy and have one room and a veranda. Each husha has mattresses, blankets, table and chairs. In the evening you have electricity in your hut for a few hours, so you can charge your mobile etc in the socket or read with light from the bulb. Otherwise you can use the candles or solar lights. There is a bathroom with showers and toilets (European and Oriental). The water from the pipe is desalinated, but not drinkable. From your bed you can watch the sunrise above the mountains of Saudi-Arabia while the desert of Sinai is in your back garden, or even the starry sky. That’s real luxury! The restaurant is open all day and offers a tasty, fresh and healthy kitchen. The menu contains food for every taste, Mediterranean, European, Arabic and traditional Bedouin meals. The fresh fish from the red sea is a famous delicacy.
Family friendly: Mahash is ideal for families. Also little children can have fun on the beach because the water is ideal for non swimmers.
how to find us
By air: Sharm el Sheikh (SSH), 200km from Mahash. Taba (TCP), 100km from Mahash. Cairo (CAI), 450km from Mahash. By bus: There is a bus going twice a day between Sharm and Nuweiba. You can take the East-Delta Bus from Cairo to Nuweiba. Alternatively we can arrange taxi transfer from your airport.
If you come from Israel, you will find us 45 km south after the border. We can arrange taxi transfers.
how this holiday makes a difference
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The camps are owned by Bedouins from the area. Many hotels were built in Sinai during the last years and land was taken from the Bedouins and their tribes so we don’t find many Bedouin camps anymore, maybe 10-15 all over the Coast.
The camps in Mahash are still owned by the Sinai- Bedouins, so they can work independently and are not just employees for big travel companies. The Bedouins can give work to their families and people from the area. Taxi transfers and trips to the desert are organized and operated by the Bedouins as well. The camps want to invest in solar power and desalination and become Eco-Lodges. There is a solar cooker installed in one camp now, but this is just the beginning! Volunteers with ideas are welcome anytime! Desert trips organized with the bedouins are not just a sightseeing tour, but a real excursion. They show you plants, herbs and trees and their medical effects, tell you the history about Bedouin tribes and show you what their life in the desert looked like before and today. Neither you nor they would have this chance if they were employed simply as mute drivers, rented by an international travel company. There is not much waste, as the camps try to avoid it when possible. Tourists can avoid making garbage if they don’t buy bottled western lemonades and sweeties. There are Bedouin ways to keep water cool and fresh with you. If there is garbage it will be separated (glass, paper, plastic, metal) and it will be taken by the EU supported “Hemaya”, a waste and recycling project. Electricity is available a few hours in the evening. In general the camp runs nicely without electricity. We work with solar products and the Bedouins in Mahash are keen to work with solar power. Also they try to find a way to desalinate the water for watering plants and trees. The camps and hushas are mostly made from palmtrees and wood. In Mahash we find most of the last 10-15 pure Bedouin Camps. To spend the holiday here means to support the independent, responsible work of the Bedouin people and to avoid harming the beautiful nature in Sinai. Bedouins don’t build hotels with a lot of western facilities, they build camps in a traditional way, mostly made of natural materials and this already more than 20 years! To support these camps means supporting the Bedouin community itself! All the family finds work through the camps, the boys help the fathers and will continue his work after, the women and girls make beautiful traditional handcraft. Here they can realize their ideas of tourism and lifestyle, otherwise they will be used as a mute cheap worker. |
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