Cooler Days Restart the Desert Safari Season Behind Hurghada, With Wadi Umm Dalfa and Maliha the Draws

Mountain safari trips out of Hurghada and the Eastern Desert behind it are filling up again as temperatures ease, with hundreds of European tourists heading into the desert each day, Youm7 reports.

The Egyptian outlet says the gradual moderation in the weather, after a noticeably hotter stretch, has brought visitors of many nationalities back to desert excursions across the Red Sea's towns and the mountains inland of them.

Mohamed Ali, who manages one of the companies running mountain safaris, told Youm7 that trips go out daily in groups. Tourists are collected from their hotels in the early morning in vehicles built for rough mountain tracks, then take marked desert routes set aside for driving and motorbike activities.

The activities he describes:

• beach buggies, among the most requested of all
• quad and motorbike riding, sold as "moto safari"
• jeep excursions
• camel riding
• climbing and long walks through the mountain wadis
• overnight stays at equipped desert camps

Two places draw particular interest, according to the report: Wadi Umm Dalfa and the Maliha area in the desert behind Hurghada, both noted for their mountain oases and established Bedouin character. Groups typically stop at Bedouin tents for traditional food and drink — Bedouin bread and mountain tea among them — and to hear about Bedouin life and customs. Many European visitors prefer a full day out with guides who know the mountain routes, ending with a group barbecue in one of the wadis alongside local people.

The report carries no prices, names no operators beyond the one manager quoted, and gives no figure for how many trips run or how many people they carry. For visitors, the usable detail is the timing: the season the operators describe begins as the summer heat breaks and runs through the winter, and pickups are in the first hours of the morning.