6) The tourists on female-led treks can only be women, and tours cannot run overnight. Each day before the sun sets, the group returns to the Hamada tribe’s home village in Wadi Sahu

7) Julie Paterson, a Sinai Trail trip officer, rests with Umm Yasser. Until recently, all the project’s guides were men. Almost all tribes still reject female guides. Only the Hamada – one of the smallest, oldest and poorest tribes – accepted the idea

8) From left: Aicha, Umm Soliman, Umm Yasser and Selima. The organisers urge tourists to photograph the guides only when they are wearing a veil

9) Umm Yasser was the first woman to join the project. She says she started hiking when she was a child and knows the mountains and the valley by heart. She convinced the families of three other women to allow them to work as guides

10) While male Bedouin guides range far from home, the women tend to stay closer, with an exceptionally rich knowledge of the surrounding mountains. They teach tourists about the local plants and herbs and the history and legends of the area, and point out the borders of the area’s tribes

The Bedouin women breaking new ground – in pictures | World news | The Guardian