Destination known and looking for jobs!: Mount Sinai, Egypt

Instead of waiting around the week in Cairo for our Indian visas, we decided to jump on a bus to Mount Sinai and the coast. The taxi we took to the bus station not only had a meter, but it was run on natural gas as well. Our driver was friendly and didn’t even come close to hitting anyone in rush hour traffic. Our purchased tickets to St. Katherine’s Monastery stated the bus left at 11am. 11am comes and goes, then 11:30, then noon…. While we wait, we meet two other Americans, Charles and Phabian, who were on Christmas break from studying law aboard in London. The bus finally arrives and we spend the first hour or so chatting with our new friends as the bus rumbles out into the desert and then cat nap, read our books, and listen to music. The bus arrives into Suez and pulls into the bus barn, for what I assumed was a re-fueling. That was not the case… After 20 minutes of sitting on bus wondering what is going on as we hear the sounds of tools being thrown around, we’re told to get off the bus. We get off and go across the street to a kiosk to buy some foul (bread) and cheese and some other snacks. We eat our little meal in the mechanic break room at the bus barn. One of the guys comes in to check the paperwork and Jeff asks him ‘Halass?’, which means 'finished' in Arabic and is answered ‘Yes’. The guy turns around and walks out and I ask ‘Does that mean the bus is fixed? Or the bus isn’t able to be fixed?’ Well it turned out that means that the bus was fixed because we get the signal a few minutes later to climb back on board. We arrive at St Katherine’s Monastery hours late, but we made it en’shallah!

We and the two law students make it over to a little Bedouin-style set-up accommodations to catch a nap. First, we all sit around the fire, drink some tea, and chat with the camp manager, who was quiet the character. He was telling stories, cracking jokes, and performing magic tricks. Charles brought out a bag of chips and was literally attacked by the camp cat Sophie, who apparently LOVES chips. I never thought I would see a chip eating cat. Around 09:30, we excuse ourselves to our modest room for a little nap before we start our climb. At 0215, the camp manager knocks on our door and we drag ourselves out of bed. We (me, J, Phabian, & Charles, who emerged from his room dressed as Waldo) walk about 3km over to St. Katherine’s Monastery we were check in with tourist police and hire the required guide.

There are a couple of ways to get up the Mount Sinai 1) ride a camel most of the way and climb the last 50 or so steps, 2) walk the camel path and 3) take the Stairs of Repentance that were laid by the monks of St. Katherine’s as a form of repentance. We choose option three. Our guide was a 22-year smoking mountain goat, who told us he could climb the 2285 meters of the mountain in less than 40 minutes. Well our little group of Americans slowed him down a bit, but we made it in about 2 hours. Towards the summit, there are some little shacks set up that sell tea, hot chocolate and are a welcome place to warm up. Believe it or not, we saw snow along the trail. Just before sunrise, we climb the last 50 steps to the summit. We post up with the other 150 people and wait for the sun to rise. It was really cold waiting for the sun to break the horizon. I had on a wool pair of shoes, hiking shoes, wool pants, outer wind-breaker pants, a t-shirt, a thermal layer with a hood, a down vest with a hood, a wool sweater with a hood, my wind breaker, a hat, and wool gloves and I was still cold. As the sun crept towards the horizon, people were praying, preaching, and singing. Once the sun ball hit the horizon, everyone started cheering! It was the first sunrise Jeff and I have watched together and it was amazing. After watching the sun rise in sky for awhile, we set back down the mountain.

We make it down to St. Katherine’s monastery. Our guide was laughing because he was the last to leave but the first to return. As we were walking by the camel base, we saw a camel fight and funniest, yet cutest camel. We head back to camp, eat breakfast, say goodbye to Charles and Phabian, collect our things, and climb into the minibus that will bring us to Dahab and the beach.