Bedouins, Hurghada

The main purpose of our safari, was visiting a bedouine village.

Our local guide (I still can't understand how could a woman from Belgum, married to an Egiptian, be called "local") Aysha had a very nice story and we were all hypnotised. She was telling us of bedouine life style. There are only about 30 people in this village and they never leave it. Since this particular village decided to stay at one place (normaly they are nomads), the chief appointed two men that can leave the village twice a month and go to Hurghada to by all the necessary things they can't provide themselves.

But, now this is just a gossip, the chief has a problem. His older son, who is, as we've been told, very atractive young man who doesn't want to live his life this way, wants to go to Hurghada and live a life of an ordinary person. If he does, his father will disown him and his younger brother will be the next chief. The problem is that this young man has never seen anything from outer world. He knows it only by tourists and that is not the real picture of things...

This is where we found out a lot about the Bedouin way of life, watched their women making bread (made from flour, salt and water and baked on an iron plate into thin pancakes called 'fetir' - delicious!), visited their houses (amazing where people can live!), pharmacy, selling home-made medicine, and shop, selling colourful necklaces, bracelets and scarves.

The dinner we had at the Bedouin village wasn't real Bedouin dinner. It was brought from our hotel, but we enjoyed it as if Bedouins themselves had prepared it for us.
After the candle light barbecue dinner, we had the pleasure of listening to a small concert and dancing barefeet.

Amazing thing with bedouines is that they never let strangers see their newborns. Until a baby is a few months old, none is alowed to see it. It's got something to do with superstitions. Aysha told us that after 10 years of coming to this village, only a few weeks earlier, she was allowed to see one of their new babies. She was amazed as we were when we saw those children. They've got this unbeliveable eyes. So deep and so worried.

If you go there, you shouldn't give children any money. But what you should do is bring some candies. None told us this and we were sorry we couldn't treat them. Just take a look at this pic. It's not clear, but still I think you can imagine the real beauty of children. They truly are something special...

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We visited a bedouin village and had the option to either go by quad bikes or in the back of a 4x4 jeep. Due to the very hot weather (the temperature was between 45C and 50C we did'nt feel like spending two-three hours in the sun riding a quad so we decided to go by jeep.
The excursion was very well arranged. We stopped several times on our way to the village to take pictures and to have some well informative cultural lections from our driver.
Once at the small village, which basically was constructed for the tourists, we had the opportunity to ride on a Camel, visit the different houses and tents around as well as small traditional shops. The locals also had prepared for us a meal and a show.
All in all an okay excursion lasting around 6 hours. Don' remeber the exact price but it was approx. 40 Euros pr. person.

There is a bedouine village in the desert several kilometers from Hurghada. Visiting this village is included in the safari. The first and most intensive impression I had in this village was - how can these people live here, in the middle of nowhere, without any civilization... And the kids... they were absolutely fascinating!