Sights

Nuweiba is a good starting point for a camel or jeep safari to some remarkable desert terrain. Explore Sinai has an office in the new commercial center, a white arcaded building near the town center. The Holiday Village Hotel also has information about safaris. If you’re in Tarabin, the Bedouin camp owners can set you up with camel or jeep; so can the Blue Bus at the south end of the settlement.

The Colored Canyon is the best-known destination-it’s a wadi with cliff walls of beautifully patterned sandstone. It’s 30km from Nuweiba; you can tour it by jeep in four hours (round-trip LE40-45 per person, if you have a few people to share the cost). Ain Omahmed is a frequently-visited desert oasis (the second-largest in South Sinai) which you can reach by jeep (LE6O-65 per person). Ain Furtuga is an oasis only 10km out of town (good camel range); Ain Houdra is an oasis in the spectacular Wadi Houdra on the road to St. Catherine’s.

Camels are a mangy breed of desert animal that can be hired to carry you around resentfully. Don’t be offended by the blase response these ungainly critters will give you; in fact, their sour expression never varies. You can hire camels to take you in the desert for LE60 per day, including food. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in safariology to figure out that camels are much slower than jeeps, so a half-day jeep trip could take several days via hairy humpmeister.

Technically, you need permission just to step off the highway in the Sinai. Desert trips require a permit, achieved by some mysterious passport fermentation process at your friendly neighborhood police station. Your guide will take care of it for you.