Friday March 29th, 2024
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Camel Races Take Over Luxor

The historical town is currently overtaken by our hump-backed honourary national mascots...

Staff Writer

On your mark...Get set… GO! Whenever you hear those words, one thing tends to come to mind. A race. That’s exactly what’s happening in Luxor right now. But what kind of race is it? A camel race, ladies and gentleman.

But it’s not just Egypt who’s participating. This is apparently a big deal drawing in 80 riders and their humpy friends from 6 different countries. Those include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Sudan, Bahrain and the UAE.

18 Egyptian riders are also present all from different Egyptian tribes. This surely entertaining race is composed of six different runs with approximately 13 camels gunning for the trophy in each race.

It has drawn so much attention that even the Security Directorate has built an 8 kilometre track equipped with medical personnel and policemen at hand in case anything goes wrong.

There are three different types of distances for the races which all depend on the age of the humpback beast. Really young camels go for 4KM, while middle age ones go for 6KM and adult ones aim for 8KM. Cups, certificates of appreciation and financial awards will be given to the winners.

Secretary of the Youth and Sports Ministry in Luxor, Medhat al-Sayed, has stated that this race was thrown together to help promote tourism in Egypt as well as revive something that our great ancestors used to do many generations back. We don’t know about you but we’d rather watch a camel race over a horse race any day.