Category Travel in the Middle East
Bedouin women making history
Um Yasser, a middle-aged Bedouin woman of the Hamada tribe in South Sinai, was born in a rock house, but spent much of her childhood living in a cave dwelling in the desert, where she and her mother tended their herd of goats. The Bedouins are an old, conservative ethnic group, with laws that govern […]
Ramadan in the Sinai
I have just spent my first full month of Ramadan in the Sinai, Egypt. In the past I had experienced snippets of Ramadan before in other Arab countries, but never been here for the full length, so was kind of excited to see how things progress. Here is a little bit of background and a […]
Getting married the BEDOUIN way – the women’s party
I walked carefully in the dark between the houses, through rough alleyways on stony ground, the sound of the Egyptian pop music getting louder. Finally I saw the tent walls and the hanging lights. Little boys hung around outside, as they always do, eager to get a glimpse of the girls as they anonymously entered […]
Oman -why I fell in love with it
Oman… I wasn’t quite sure what to expect before arriving, not having done much research. Saw a few pictures, heard it was nice, that’s about it. And then I arrived and it all fell into place…
Valuable lessons about giving charity
Recently I posted a picture on Facebook of an old Egyptian man sitting in his chair on a chilly winters day outside a pharmacy in the little Red Sea town of Dahab. Spread in front of him was a blanket, where he was trying to sell odd things – shoes, some clothes – to eke […]
The Sinai Trail – a 220km hiking odyssey across the desert
The Sinai Trail is a 220km epic walk accompanied by Bedouin guides through the mountains and desert of South Sinai
Hiking 200km through the desert: the Sinai Trail – part 1 – Anticipation
You know that feeling of needing a soul-stirring adventure? A little challenge to get your pulse up and give you that “alive feeling” again? That was me, stuck in my office a few months back. Bored and flicking through Facebook I found something that rang my bell: the opportunity to hike 200km through the Sinai […]
A fascination for the Sahara
Sahara is the Arabic word for desert. Visit a desert or two, and you will find out that the desert is a magical, ever-changing landscape and not just a huge pile of sand: huge golden dunes, flat packed desert, a moonscape scattered with strange rock formations or craggy and colourful mountains. If you care to spend a few days […]
It’s Christmas: still no room at the inn
It’s quite hard, I find, to enjoy a cup of tea at someone’s house when you can hear gunshots being fired outside. It was late in the afternoon, and I was at Hashem el-Azzeh’s house in Hebron, Palestine. My friend, Sophie, and I had just spent an interesting and moving day walking around the settler-occupied neighbourhood […]
“Egypt must be at least 10,000 miles from New Zealand”
A client of mine (who was on a Venus Adventures women-only trip to Morocco with me) sent me an excerpt out of her travel diary from when she visited Egypt in the 80s. It is always fun to read old travel diaries – to see how the world has changed, how life has changed and […]
Adventures of Venus 