Tackling the 200km Sinai Trail — in pictures

We dozed in shady hideaways to avoid the heat of the midday sun, drank endless cups of hot sweet tea every time we encountered another group, cooked over a fire each evening and watched as our camel man Taiwee passed on his skills to his 10-year-old son, who was accompanying him on his first multi-day camel trek. Photo by John Henzell

All charter flights were suspended and tourism suffered a cataclysmic drop to virtually nothing. Guides who hoped to be leading hikers through the wilderness had to nurture subsistence gardens so at least they’d have something to eat. What was particularly galling for the local Bedouins was that the radicalised tribes were 700 kilometres to the north and this part of the interior of the peninsula was safe. Photo by John Henzell

This made more sense when you realise there are two distinct parts of the Sinai. The so-called “Egyptian” part has the resort towns such as Sharm El Sheikh, Dahab and Nuweiba and St Catherine, where there are lots of police and soldiers with guns. Photo by John Henzell

The “Bedouin” part of the Sinai — basically everywhere else — features little obvious security, but we soon became aware that part of the Bedouins’ mastery of desert life includes being fully aware of absolutely everything that happens on their territory. Photo by John Henzell

The trail organisers knew we were in the middle of our hike and began calling Bedouins they knew in the area, who were able to provide a scarily precise location of everywhere we’d been in the past few days. Photo by John Henzell

When we reached the country of the Jebeleya tribe we were looked after by Nssr, the quick-witted and perpetually smiling guide who knew these mountains like the folds of his kandura and whose knowledge of both ancient folklore and the strange quirks of westerners showed he comfortably stood astride the old and new Bedouin worlds. Photo by John Henzell

Musallem, our first guide, was one of the lucky ones and still had a thriving business running an unpretentious collection of beachside huts at Ras Shetain. Photo by John Henzell

At Ein Hudera — an oasis thought to have been Hazeroth, cited in the Quran as the place where Moses sought shelter in ancient times — we were handed on to Farag, of the Muzeina tribe. Photo by John Henzell