This Is Egypt's Largest-Ever Camel Race in the Sinai Desert

Dust rises like a cloud over Egypt’s Wadi Zalaga as pickup trucks roar through the South Sinai dunes. Camels snort, stamp, tug at ropes. Children climb onto barebacks, gripping wooden saddles. From all directions, Bedouin tribes arrive—Mzayen, Tarabin, others—for the one day that gathers them all: the annual camel race.

There are no banners, no ticket booths, and no grandstands. Yet the people who need to be there arrive, because this race is not organised. It is inherited through generations. Most of the riders are young—light enough to go fast, steady enough to stay on. This is where they learn. Not in lessons, not in theory. On a moving animal, at speed, across open ground. Fall, get back up. Ride again.

After quick yet hearty greetings, the camels line up loosely. Someone shouts. Another waves an arm. Then—everything breaks open. Camels lurch forward, some sprinting, some refusing, some veering off immediately. Dust rises. Trucks roar alongside. Voices vanish into the noise. It is colourful, chaotic, alive—a celebration of what it means to be part of the desert’s story.

And though you might not see it marked, there is a finish line. Everyone knows when it’s reached. Shouts turn to cheers. A trophy is lifted. Then, camels are loaded, and—as swiftly as they came—families leave in different directions, dust settling behind them. 

By the next morning, the wind erases every last hoofprint, tire mark, and track, leaving Wadi Zalaga quiet once more, waiting for the race to return as it has for decades.