San Francisco bay area Norma Supe, a 63-year-old nurse from Union City, and 66-year old Patti Ganal, of Los Gatos, recounted their brief but intense experience as hostages in Egypt, after being snatched Friday from a minivan on a tour of Sinai.

The two women, Ganal’s husband and two other Americans had finished a tour of the sixth-century St. Catherine’s Monastery, located at the foot of Mount Sinai where the Old Testament says Moses received the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments.

Supe and Ganal were abducted for several hours by armed Bedouin tribesmen. Their Egyptian tour guide, Hisham Zaki, was allowed to go with the women and serve as translator.

“I was not afraid at all because I know God has sent us here,” Ganal, a devout Christian and tour leader to Egypt, Jordan and Israel said in Cairo.

The kidnappers said several times they would not harm the women. Zaki said they were seeking leverage to pressure the government to release two relatives, including one of the kidnappers’ sons. The Bedouins drove for a few hours through the mountains, and suggested to the women that they were doubling as new tour guides. At one time they stopped, made a fire for the women to stay warm and prepared coffee and tea. The women were also served pita bread, dates and other dried fruit.

The abducted women hesitated to call the men “captors,” saying that the kidnappers were kind, polite and hospitable. They talked about religion and tribal rights. One even put out his cigarette in the car when one hostage said the smoke was bothering her.

The Bedouins released Zaki and the women after negotiations with tribal leaders in the peninsula.

Ganal and Supe were invited by the South Sinai Governor for dinner in a hotel in St. Catherine and for a night at a hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh. The official paid for flights from Sharm el-Sheikh for the tour group.

The five Americans visited the pyramids this weekend and were planning a visit to the coastal city of Alexandria. The group planned to return to the U.S. on Tuesday.

“All of this is an unforgettable memory,” said Norma Supe. “Maybe God had a purpose for this. It was probably to encourage more faith in me.”

CBS San Francisco

Image via Wikipedia

Hesham Nessim has captured two Guinness World Records for mountain climbing feats. He is now  planning an attempt  to climb the peninsula’s highest peak, 1,800 meter Mt. Al-Ajmah, alone. The climbing feat hopes to help create interest in the Sinai as a tourism site, as well as regenerate the tourism industry in Egypt as a whole.

The climbing event will be aimed to target Arab tourism to Egypt, particularly during holidays such as Ramadan. It will include the planting of 2,500 olive trees in various parts of the Sinai.

The climbing event on Mt. Al-Ajmah is being organized by Sami Suleiman, Chairman of the Egypt Tourism Association. Suleiman hopes that the event will help regenerate tourism to the country, including the Sinai, where its Red Sea coastline has long been a major tourist attraction.

Green Prophet

Despite popular belief that he (Akhenaten) shied away from warfare, Professor Prof. James Hoffmeier, of Trinity International University, found evidence that the heretic-king kept a well-equipped, and supplied, fortress in the Sinai desert. It was located on the east side of the modern day Suez Canal.

How well supplied? Well for starters the fortress had a moat around it, of all things. Secondly, from the sealings found on the site, it seems that all the Amarna pharaohs sent wine out to keep the isolated soldiers provisioned – got to have something to pass away those desert nights!

Excerpted from an aeticle by Owen Jarus for Heritage Key

According to the Israeli Airports Authority – the body responsible for the country’s international land crossings – only 66,000 Israelis passed through Taba in the first six months of this year. That is about half as many as in the same period of 2008. The number for all of 2004 was 400,000. Unless there is a significant spike in the second half of this year, tourist numbers from Israel will be at a 10-year low.

Israelis stopped coming after three bombs exploded at popular tourist sites, including the Hilton Hotel, in 2004, leaving 34 people dead. Although no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, three men said to belong to the Sinai group Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, were sentenced to death in 2006.

Because Israelis were said to be the target of the attacks, thousands fled the Sinai peninsula, many vowing never to return. Over the next two years several more blasts against tourists in Cairo and elsewhere in Sinai pushed the death toll to 140.

Despite a three-decade-old treaty between Israel and Egypt, there are still tensions between people, with many Egyptians not accepting normalised relations and protesting economic co-operation.

Though it has been three years since the last bombing in Sinai, one Israeli tourist was stabbed in a camp earlier this year. The Israeli Counter Terrorism Bureau continues to encourage nationals not to visit Egypt, warning of kidnappings in the region.

Israelis tend to visit Sinai during major Jewish holidays, but this year the Israeli government has again warned nationals not to travel to Egypt during popular holiday periods.

Between 60 and 70 per cent of Sinai’s revenue comes from tourism, the rest is made up by trade, agriculture and some craft work. This dependence on tourism makes the Sinai economy far less stable than that of the rest of Egypt. And because of its proximity to Gaza and Israel, where there is always the potential for conflict, the southern stretch of Sinai from Taba is much more volatile, said Dr Samir Makary of the American University in Cairo’s economics department.

On top of this, the Bedouin complain that their communities are overlooked by Cairo for investment projects, and that Egyptians reap greater benefit from the Sinai’s tourism industry than indigenous Bedouin residents as they own most of the big hotels.

The impact of Israeli visitors to Sinai is often overlooked as they account for only a small fraction of Egypt’s overall tourism revenue. But while the loss of a few hundred thousand holidaymakers will not be detrimental to Egypt’s tourism industry, the impact is being felt by the Bedouins who own most of the low-cost camps and taxi services.

Excerpted from an article by Rebecca Collard for The National

Malta based CHI Hotels & Resorts (CHI) will open its newly built 351-room ‘Tiran Hotel’, as part of the Corinthia Beach Resort Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, on 1st July of this year. The property is owned by Mr. Abdulhafiz Ali Mansouri’s Cyrene Tourism Investment Corporation of Egypt.

Situated in one of Sharm’s finest locations in the heart of Montazah, the Resort is able to offer an outstanding vacation, diving and conference experience. The luxurious four-star Tiran Hotel features 351 rooms and suites with sea and mountain views, two restaurants, including an Indian specialty restaurant, three bars, an extensive landscaped outdoor pool and children’s pool, a kid’s club, an amphitheatre, a business centre, an internet café and a spacious conference hall with adjoining syndicate rooms. The Tiran Hotel has its own private beach featuring relaxation facilities, dining and a Bedouin tent.

Other exciting hotel facilities include a Day Spa with Jacuzzi and a variety of beauty and relaxation treatments, a tennis court, a mini-golf course, an expert dive centre and extensive water sports activities. Vistas from the Resort’s balconies extend all the way to the biblical Mount Sinai Mountains and to the nearby Tiran Island, while the well known dive site of Ras Nasruni is literally metres away from the hotel’s beach.

Sharm El Sheikh is a city situated on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and has become a leading tourist resort thanks to its dramatic landscape, year-round dry and temperate climate and long stretches of natural beaches. Its waters are clear and calm for most of the year and have become popular for various water sports, particularly recreational scuba diving and snorkelling which some consider to be among the best in the world. Coral reefs, under water and marine life, unmatched anywhere in the world, offer a spectacular and dazzling time for divers. All around are Bedouins, colourful tents, mountains and sea. Sharm features all the amenities one could expect of a top class tourist resort, including casinos, discos and nightclubs, golf courses, windsurfing and other water sports, horses and camel riding, desert safaris, and nearby ancient attractions.

Hotel Interactive

A shark attacked and killed a French tourist diving in a remote site off Egypt’s Red Sea coast on Tuesday, in the first fatal shark attack in the Arab country since 2004, state media and a French embassy official said.

The woman’s leg showed visible bite marks, and she likely bled to death before being lifted to the surface, Egyptian state news agency MENA quoted a medical source as saying.

Marsa Alam is a remote southern dive spot on the Red Sea coast frequented by tourists hoping to avoid the crowds at more popular sites in the Sinai peninsula, where tourists flock in large numbers for the colourful coral reefs.

Sharks are common in the area and tourists often take pictures, but attacks are rare. Egypt’s Environment Ministry is looking to set up a natural reserve for the sharks near Marsa Alam, where it already has a similar reserve for dolphins.

Reuters

Archaeologists who discovered the 3,500-year-old garrison, where up to 50,000 soldiers could be posted in times of heightened tensions, say they hope inscriptions at Luxor’s Karnak temple may serve as a guide to finding other outposts.

But knowing the location of the garrison at the ancient city of Tharu, in a formerly fertile area of Egypt where a branch of the Nile river once met the Mediterranean Sea, is key to understanding where to start looking.

In their 3,000-year history, Egypt’s Pharaohs often ventured across Sinai to fight Hittites and other civilizations in the area now covered by Israel , the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon , Jordan, Syria and Iraq.

The fortress was first used as a base from which to expel the Hyksos, who occupied Egypt for some 120 years between 1620 and 1534 BC and whose capital, Avaris, was located nearby in the Delta. Their expulsion is seen as the beginning of the New Kingdom.

The fortress later played a significant role in military actions against the Hittites during the reign of Ramses II during the 19th pharaonic dynasty.

Reuters

Egypt Beyond the Monuments: Golf
In just 10 years, Egypt has gone from its original three standard-bearers to almost 20 world-class golf courses – with many more under construction or planned. The courses are spread right across the country. One can tee off in the historic heart of Cairo and Cleopatra’s home city, Alexandria, send a drive soaring towards the Luxor mountains where the pharaohs of ancient Egypt were buried and sink putts on Red Sea Riviera courses from the Sinai Peninsula to the northern and western Red Sea coasts.

Egypt Beyond the Monuments: The Holy Land
Egypt has played an important role in the history of Christianity’s Holy Family, as well as in the roots of Judaism and Islam. Moses had deep ties to the country especially in the Sinai, and there are many Biblical sites that are of great significance to all of the three major monotheistic religions.

Egyptian authorities have undertaken a major project to re-pave the “Route of the Holy Family” and give prominence to the religious landmarks along this route.

Visitors will also find it interesting to see many of the famous Mosques, Coptic Churches, and Jewish Synagogues.

Egypt Beyond the Monuments: Desert Tourism
Desert tourism offers adventure and a glimpse into the nomadic Bedouin culture. It can be explored by trekking, hiking, and 4×4 land rovers, as well as by camel. To the west of the Nile, the Western Desert contains numerous lush oases. Scattered in a wide arc, like islands in an ocean of sand, the oases are accessible from Cairo and Luxor. In both cases, a week is needed for exploring these desert wonders and, in particular, visiting the Dakhla Oasis where the inhabitants have preserved their traditional settlement. The White Desert with its astonishing limestone formations and the Black Desert with its black, pyramidal hills are another two stopover sites en route.

The desert on the Sinai Peninsula adds a spiritual dimension to the rich array of landscapes in this region. At the summit of Mount Moses (Mount Sinai) or in the Colored Canyon close to Nuweiba in the Ras Muhammed natural park, one can truly experience the total serenity of the desert. A safari to south Sinai is not complete without a visit to the biggest of the region’s oases, Wadi Feiran.

Egypt Beyond the Monuments: Wellness
Socrates himself was singing the praises of Egypt’s healing therapies and spas some thousands of years ago. Whether visitors want to bathe in sand or salt-rich seas, soak in hot springs or wrap oneself in curative clay, Egypt has centuries of experience in catering to its therapy-keen tourists.

Aswan: Good for traditional Nubian therapies and environmental therapies including sand bathing and massages.

New Valley: With an abundance of bubbling hot springs, the hot water wells of the New Valley are naturally heated between 35-45 degrees all year round. One can also opt for sand bathing or sample various traditional medicinal herbs.

Red Sea: The whole Red Sea coast including Marsa Alam and Safaga offers a practically perfect climate for healing in rich mineral waters, with up to 35 percent more salt than the average sea.

Oyoun Mossa and Hammam Pharaon: As well as having the most sulphuric waters in the world, both Oyoun Mossa and Hammam Pharaon boast a warm, dry climate that’s perfect for recuperating. Their success rate for curing all kinds of aches and pains is astonishingly high.

All the deluxe hotel resorts also have wellness and spa centers.

For more information about Egypt: www.egypt.travel

From pre-dynastic times, early Egyptians made their way to the Sinai Peninsula over land or across the Red Sea in search of minerals. Their chief targets were turquoise and copper, which they mined and extracted in the Sinai mountains.

Archaeologists examining evidence left 8,000 years ago have concluded that some of the very earliest known settlers in Sinai were miners. In about 3,500 BC these mineral hunters discovered the great turquoise veins of Serabit Al-Khadim. Some 500 years later the Egyptians had mastered Sinai and set up a large and systematic mining operation at Serabit Al-Khadim, where they carved out great quantities of turquoise. They carried their loads down the Wadi Matalla to the garrison port at Al-Markha, south of the present village of Abu Zenima, where they set about loading them on board boats bound for the mainland.

The turquoise was so valued that it became an important part of ritual symbolism in ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies. They used it to carve sacred scarabs and fabricate jewellery, or ground it into pigments for painting statuettes, bricks, reliefs and walls.

A temple dedicated to Goddess Hathor was built during the 12th Dynasty, when Serabit Al-Khadim was the centre of copper and turquoise mining and a flourishing trade was established. One of few Pharaonic monuments known in Sinai, the temple is unlike other temples of the period in that it is composed of a large number of bas-reliefs and carved stelae showing the dates of various turquoise-mining missions in antiquity, the number of team members, and the goal and duration of each mission. From dynasty to dynasty, the temple was expanded and beautified, with the last known enlargement taking place in the 20th Dynasty.

Today, the whole site is being subjected to restoration and documentation in order to make it more accessible to visitors and more tourist-friendly. Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, head of the central administration for Lower Egypt antiquities, said that the restoration, which will take about a year on a budget of LE500,000, would remove all the signs of time that marred the temple’s walls and reliefs. It would also consolidate them and strengthen the fabric and colours of the wall paintings. The restoration will be carried out by a mission from the SCA, while the documentation will be implemented in collaboration with CULTNAT which will provide the necessary technical assistance and equipment.

Excerpted from an article by Nevine El-Aref for Al Ahram

Tourism is an industry that is crucial to the health of the wider Egyptian economy, providing direct and indirect employment to 12.6 per cent of the workforce, according to official figures. After foreign direct investment, it is the country’s largest source of foreign revenue, bringing in $10.8bn in 2007-08 and accounting for 6.5 per cent of gross domestic product.

Last year brought unprecedented growth, beating analysts’ expectations. Arrivals reached a record 12.8m visitors, according to the ministry of tourism, up 15 per cent on the year before.

The sector, however, now faces the threat of a slowdown as a result of the global recession. Economic conditions have been deteriorating in most of the countries from which tourists come to Egypt. The top four – Russia, Britain, Germany and Italy – all have weakening economies and falling currencies. One problem is the strength of the Egyptian pound, which has been gaining against the rouble, sterling and the euro.

Over the last two decades, the resorts of the southern Sinai peninsula and the Red Sea have grown spectacularly, attracting huge investment in hotels and infrastructure and developing into popular destinations for European holidaymakers in search of a cheap holiday after a medium-haul flight. While the offering in the past centred around Nile cruises and the pharaonic monuments of Cairo and Upper Egypt, now the majority of the country’s visitors come for sun, sea and sand holidays in the new resorts and often bypass the cultural destinations.

To maintain a competitive edge in a shrinking market, Egyptian hotels may have to reduce their already low prices even further. But the tourism ministry has been cautioning against discounting, arguing that experience has shown that it is difficult to restore prices to their previous levels after a crisis has ended.

Excerpted from an article by Heba Saleh for FT.com