Chooklotto's travel blogs:
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St Katherines and Mt Sinai.... phew..
Entry 12 of 23 | show all | print this entry |
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My alarm went off at 6am to get ready to be downstairs for the long drive to St Katherine's starting at 7am... We got out brekky boxes as usual and piled in the van for the 7hr drive... There is still heaps of traffic around even at this time of the morning.
It was a fairly uneventful drive - we did drive under the Suez Canal - we couldn't see any ships though, only a few waiting in the Gulf of Suez. They don't take too kindly to people taking photos around this area - lots of security and police presence... We stopped twice for a drink and toilet breaks and passed many check-points - a few wanting to see our passport.
 
The landscape was dry, sandy, barren, rocky and huge hills... We all couldn't wait to get to our hotel and what a nice surprise it was !
Hotel Daniela was excellent... Little cabins, comfy beds and views you could only dream of. We had a late buffet style lunch (all good!) and a little while later jumped in the van for the 10 min ride to St Katherine's monastery.
  
This is where we would start the climb to the top of Mt Sinai... Most of us decided to take the camels 3/4 way up - about a 1 1/2 hr trip. My camel "Whiskey" was a good boy, a bit of whining in the beginning but he was a leader and he took it in his stride.. Ann and I led and our camels never stopped once unlike the other 4 ! Theirs kept having to get prodded to move ... there are heaps of shops along the way selling drinks, food and schlok...
  
We dismounted our camels and left Wahid behind (too lazy to climb) and started the 750 steps of repentance -- they were tough and we had a few rest stops but with a slow and steady pace it wasn't too bad and besides - on reaching the top we were rewarded with amazing views!
 
There is a very small church up here -- its from this mountain that apparently Moses received the 10 commandments from God.
 
I sat away from the group and took in the sunset on my own and as Bruce McAvaney would say - it was pretty special.! Not long after and while there was still a bit of light left we made our way down the steps of repentance and to the place where we had left Wahid. it was pretty cold at the top - i was lucky i had bought 2 jumpers with me. In our torchlight we continued down along the path where we had previously been carried up by the camels -- it was a tough walk! Gravelly rock, slipping and sliding down small steps - was rough but fun. It took about 1 1/2 hrs to reach the monastery - we were all very stuffed but glad we had made it... We stopped at the shops and got some snacks - Jaq and I couldn't be bothered having dinner so we ended up chocolate and chips and crashing about 10pm - exhausted from our physical exercise but excited to be heading to our beach camp at Nuweiba tomorrow for 2 days of nothing!
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