Mt Sinai

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Trip Start Oct 31, 2008 Previous
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  Mt Sinai, Red Sea and Sinai, Egypt
Friday, November 14, 2008

So Mt Sinai, Moses mountaın to the Egyptıans and the many pılgrıms you see on the way. We got to St Catherınes Monastary at about 2AM and started our acent at 2.30ısh. Kınd of peaceful wıth the full moon shınıng above us so no need for a torch at fırst and lots of camels carryıng the lazy or the less able up to the steps. It was faırly hard goıng but there are tea shops all the way up for a wee break and a chocolate bar, I thınk ıt took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the top with a few stops along the way, according to our guide that is average not fast not slow, so gotta be happy with that. The last part up the steps is the most hard out. We rented a mattress and a blanket and then our bedouin guide took us to a platform to watch the sunrise and left us to it. There were a WHOLE LOT OF Russian pilgrims up there singing in the sunrise and a few groups of Japanese Christians, the singing wa quite relaxing and made for a nice atmosphere.As we were busy piling on more clothes as its pretty cold up there we didnt at first notice our little fan club staring at us, then this group of Egyptian guys all started laughing at us and talking at us in arabic all wanting photos of us (especially us girls) and for us to take photos of them, it was actually quite annoying as we wanted a bit of peace and quiet to watch the sunrise. Luckly they buggered off eventually and we got to take it all in and it was beautiful! the sun rose like a big red disc over the clouds on the horizon before it came up completely and shone bright and the day was upon us. Thank god as it warmed up a bit then too. But of course then we had to get down! and we were told taking th 3000 odd steps would be faster so being suckers for punishment we went that way, it ended up taking us just as long as the other way with out all of the precaious stairs, but i'd say I probably held us up quite a bit as i picked my way down gingerly/ well its better than a twisted ankle (eh mum) lol. Legs were a bit shaky though once we got to the bottom, and we were almost glad of the 7 hour drive back to cairo (well almost). I am very proud of myself though making up the mountain and surviving to tell the tale! Kris is a mountain goat so i dont know if he felt it was as much of a challenge as i did, but bless him for sticking with me when i was sooo slow.

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