“85% of the Bedouins – slowly, slowly, they’re changing their life to settling down because of a job, because of city, villages, because of the schools and the easy life. I’m worried personally about this. If everybody will do this, we will lose our culture. We are losing the knowledge about the nature. I think it’s important to keep it and to pass it on to others.”
Musallem Abu Faraj has been guiding treks through the mountains of South Sinai for decades. For hundreds of years, the Bedouin have guided pilgrims in the area – to sites such as Mount Moses, where the prophet is said to have received the Ten Commandments, and also merchants along routes linking the ancient Silk Road in the Far East to the Mediterranean.
Ten years ago, eight Bedouin tribes came together to create the Sinai Trail, a 340-mile set of trails crisscrossing South Sinai, to preserve both their traditions and the natural environment. But now, with the loss of tourism because of the Gaza War, and in face of the hostility of the Egyptian government, the Sinai Trail is struggling for survival. Musallem hopes his 15-year-old son Said will learn and continue the Bedouin guiding tradition – but the future is in doubt.