The Bawaki Beach Resort: How a Dream in Sinai Kicked off a Magical Tourism Niche

Time in Sinai follows a different rhythm; I eased into it, rising with the sunset, sharing breakfasts of fava beans and black honey molasses on the beach, having conversations with people from all over the world, and listening to music jams between visitors and local Bedouins under the starry night sky.

I started travelling to Sinai every month. During public holidays, camps would be full to the brim with people of all ages, but off season, I was often alone. While it seemed that my Egyptian friends were constantly traveling to Sinai, people outside of Egypt questioned whether it was a safe tourist destination - wasn't it too dangerous?

Ahmed Adil Wahby, an architect and co-founder of Bawaki Beach Hotel, began visiting Sinai in 1984, first to the better-known Sharm El-Sheikh, then to a small town called Taba. "On our way, we found a place on the road called Basata and discovered that it belonged to one of our colleagues at college," he tells OkayAfrica. "We fell in love with this area between Nuweiba and Taba, and began dreaming about building a project there."

Wahby and two friends contacted the Ministry of Tourism, obtaining the necessary approvals and papers that would allow them to build Bawaki Beach Resort, the first resort in the area to offer an unmatched seaview experience.

"Both the Ministry of Tourism and many of our friends and family were happy about the idea and encouraged us to go ahead. We had 15 silent partners," he remembers.

But when people saw the land they had bought in the middle of nowhere, they were sceptical. "Both friends and strangers used to come, look around, and say, 'What are you doing? Are you that rich to spend your money on nothing?" he chuckles.

Bawaki is Arabic for "arcs," named after the central theme of the hotel's architectural design. Back in Cairo, Wahby had worked on prominent projects, such as designing the houses of the children of the late Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat during the late 1970s. However, realizing a beach resort required him to learn a variety of other skills, including running a hotel, marketing and business, liaising with travel agencies and guests, and setting up a steady supply of groceries.

"It was very enjoyable for me. We didn't have a routine," says Wahby, who moved from Cairo to Sinai permanently for over a decade. "I was feeling that one of our dreams had come true. I felt that it was my baby."

In the early 1990s, the area had no electricity, and Bawaki had no phones. Every day, someone would drive 18 kilometers to the town of Nuweiba and call the Cairo office to get the reservations for the next day.

"When we had an issue with the generators, we spent the night without any electricity or air conditioning," says Wahby. "Sometimes the gas stations did not have fuel for days."

They learned to live with the land and without any technology from the Bedouins, Sinai's indigenous people, with whom Wahby had good relations. Bawaki's staff hailed from all over the country, making the place a microcosm of Egyptian culture, with influences from Bedouin, Upper Egyptian, Cairene, and Oasis culture.

"There were educational differences, but we succeeded in making them feel like we're one family," says Wahby. "Some of them worked with us for at least 15 years and moved their entire families to Nuweiba. They still live there now."

With time, Bawaki opened a diving center and a kitesurfing school. Sometimes they would have over 200 guests for lunch, passing by Bawaki from Israel on their way to St. Catherine. One day, the Minister of Tourism showed up unannounced. "He said, 'What's going on? Nobody's talking about anything except Bawaki," Wahby recalls. Still, tourism in Sinai was generally slow.

"We had a lot of problems from the beginning," he says. The Gulf War in 1990, acts of terrorism that reached into Sinai, and the revolution in 2011 immensely stifled the tourist industry.

"It was a very bad situation. I had to return to Cairo and work there, because I had nothing to do for a whole year," says Wahby. Back in the capital, his architectural designs included the house of the Mexican ambassador in Egypt during the 1990s.

In 2020, the partners sold Bawaki, after spending money from their own pockets for seven years to sustain the camp. Now, Israel's war on Gaza is once again putting a strain on communities in Sinai that depend on tourism for their livelihood.

"The area has become scary for foreigners," says Wahby, and stresses that it didn't use to have this reputation. "In the 1980s, it wasn't on the [tourism] map yet, but it was not scary."

He misses it, but it will always be a part of him. "I met my wife at Bawaki," he shares. "She was a guest. And my daughter met her husband at Bawaki as well; he was also a guest."

Despite the challenges of sustaining a place in Sinai, Wahby commends the younger generations who have mostly opened camps and ecolodges. "The area became suitable to be lived in for the whole year, they have hospitals and a lot of other facilities," he says. "It's much easier for everyone."

Bawaki Beach Resort continues to welcome visitors from all over the world to this day. While the holidays are a sure way to meet people and make friends, I experienced the quiet times as some of the most magical moments in my life. When one sits by the beach, overlooking the blue waters framed by mountains, one cannot help but think that this is truly sacred land.