Holy Mountains Batman!

Sunrise from the top of Mt. Sinai


So I returned from quite the weekend trip.

Wanting to take advantage of the remaining time before classes start, the Cairo posse I hang out with decided that a journey to Mt. Sinai was in order. While I had been planning on doing this at some point in my Egyptian adventures, I wasn't expecting it the first weekend. Luckily, it turned out to be as good a time as any to go.

The trip commenced at 1 AM with a 7-8 hour bus ride to Sharm el-Sheikh (a tourist hotspot on the Red Sea), which we only used as a layover to get to Dahab. While I tried to use this overnight bus ride to sleep, a very loud Egyptian action/drama movie and a bad American sci-fi movie showing on the bus made this difficult.

When we got to Dahab, cab drivers descended on us like lawyers on workplace injuries, but a few "no thank you's" got us out. This experience, along with the walk through a hot, desert-like setting from the bus station to downtown did not give me the best first impression of Dahab, but the second I saw the Red Sea that changed completely. We rented a room at a small pension with a great view of the Red Sea from the balcony and a nice seaside dining area where we found ourselves spending many an hour.


The view from the balcony

Although everyone was exhausted from the lack of sleep on the bus, we decided to go into the small downtown area of Dahab before anything else. In one souvenir shop, it's two shopkeepers invited us to smoke Shisha and talk for a while in the store. While I was a little skeptical at first and thought "what's the catch?," the two shopekeepers, Hima and Ali, turned out to be incredibly friendly and hospitable. They also had very good senses of humor, and I enjoyed speaking to them about politics, culture, and Arabic (Note: bringing up the recent Israeli-Gaza conflict really really depresses Egyptians, and Egyptians seem cautiously optimistic about Obama). We ended up visiting them the next day just to drink tea and talk.

While I could have gotten some rest before climbing Mt. Sinai, I opted to go wading in the Red Sea instead, where you could see Saudi Arabia off in the distance. My phone even got a "Welcome to Saudi Arabia! Here are your roaming rates..." text message in Dahab. After this relaxation, we left to climb Mt. Sinai at midnight so we could watch sunrise from the peak. (Note: for those of you that don't know, Mt. Sinai is where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God in the Bible)

When we began our trek up the mountain at 2 AM, I immediately regretted only wearing a polo shirt and a track jacket. Our Bedouin guide, who appeared to be no older than 15, lead the way up the easier trail up the mountain without so much as panting or ever slowing down for himself. While I consider myself vaguely in shape at times, I really had to push myself to keep up with him and could hear my heart racing whenever we stopped. However, the scenery of a sky full of more stars than I probably have ever seen and the cool desert air didn't make this seem all too unpleasant. I also figured that 70-80 year old monks make the trek up the mountain fairly regularly, so I should be able to without complaining.

While I was right that the exercise of the climbing made me warmer at first, nothing prepared me for the peak. Around 6 AM we climbed the final steps to the summit, and rented blankets and a mattress to shelter ourselves from the freezing wind. My nose ran horribly from the cold, and anytime I exposed my fingers to take pictures I they fell numb. However, the sight of the sun rising from one of the peak made this temporary discomfort worth it. Truly an amazing sight.

As the sun rose, we could see how high up we were and how far we at climbed at night. Wanting to see what we missed out on, we opted to take the more difficult trail, the steps of repentance, down. I have no idea how we would have done this at night, since finding the trail in the daytime and trying not slip on any rocks was challenging enough in broad daylight. Once we made it down, we waited for about 2 hours to enter the monastery of St. Catherine, located at the foot of Mt. Sinai as it was only opened from 11 AM - 12 PM that day.



The Monastery of St. Catherine was built in 527 AD by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I as a site to mark where Moses supposedly talked to the burning bush (Sorry for anything historical, but people that know me know my of fascination with buildings and landmarks that are centuries old). The Monastery contains a chapel, a well where Moses is said to have met his wife, a huge collection of century-old icons, and according to legend, the descendant of the burning bush itself. Seeing all of this was amazing, even though most of the Monastery is closed to the public (it's staffed by about 20 Greek Orthodox monks). Photography also wasn't permitted in the main chapel, so you'll just have to believe me that it's numerous very Eastern Orthodox looking icons and mosaics were amazing.

Upon arriving back to Dahab, I actually swam in the Red Sea, which was like the Atlantic in the summertime. After more relaxing, visiting Hima and Ali, and dinner, we all finally crashed and got some sleep. Today was marked by a 10 hour long bus ride from Dahab to Cairo, and tomorrow will be marked by my first day of classes at AUC. While being the Arabic nerd I am, I can't say I mind taking 2 different Arabic classes 4 times a week each, but I would still prefer more of this weekend at the moment.