Cairo (TAN): Ben Hoffler, a trail developer who is exploring synergies between modern tourism and the conservation of Egypt’s ancient nomadic heritage, has developed a plan for a long-distance hiking trail in Egypt’s mainland.
The plan was designed and prepared by the local Bedouins with Hoffler’s help over the past five years.
The Red Sea Mountain Trail, a 170-kilometre route, takes about 10 days to hike. It was created by members of the Khushmaan clan, which is part of the Maaza, one of Egypt’s biggest Bedouin tribes.
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Part of the Red Sea Mountains is Jebel Shayib el Banat, mainland Egypt’s highest peak at 2,187 metres.
The Red Sea Mountain Trail is a sister project of the Sinai Trail, which involves the eight Bedouin tribes of the region.Sinai’s success spurred the establishment of a similar initiative in the Red Sea mountains.
The official inauguration of the trail will be held the first weekend of April in the Hurghada city by the Red Sea. A few hikers, however, have already completed parts of the trail.
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Hamsa Mansour is one.
“You find very vast landscapes and vast desert,” she told Al-Monitor. “The trail is very adventurous and challenging for hikers … because it has not been walked for a very long time.”
The idea behind the Red Sea Mountain Trail is to boost sustainable and environmentally friendly tourism in the region. The tourism industry along the Red Sea has, so far, been about big resorts and diving, in which the lifestyle of the Bedouin has no place. Sustainable adventure tourism and its greater impact on local communities have been largely ignored.
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“We are creating a new tourist industry that empowers communities that have been traditionally sidelined by big business and beach resort tourism,” Hoffler told Al-Monitor.
The project is owned and managed by the Bedouin and overseen by the Red Sea Mountain Trail Association, and headed by Sheikh Merayi Abu Musallem, the head of the Khushmaan clan.
The Sinai Trail has created 50 direct jobs, exemplifying that such initiatives can generate employment for the local community. The locals now have jobs that include guides, cooks, cameleers and drivers, and the indirect work created around it has reached camps, orchards, handicrafts and shops.
