I am so exhausted right now! Last night at 11pm Nigel and I left on a mini tour bus heading for Saint Katherine's Protectorate where we were to climb Mt. Sinai. It is the one touristy thing we wanted to do before leaving Dahab since it is such a sacred sight. Mt Sinai is 2285m at the peak and is described in the guide book as being "easy and beautiful to climb". Ha! Within the first 5 minutes of the hike 4 people out of our group opted to hire camels to carry them up the rest of the way. We started our hike at 1:30am (you have to go at night because during the day it is way too hot) and after 2 1/2 hours of sleep stumbling up the mountain and up the 750 steep steps at the end, we finally reached the top. It's cold at the top and people walk around hiring out blankets and mattresses to sleep on. There were lots of people there awaiting the sunrise but I was a bit disappointed because there weren't any hard core religious people singing hymns which I was expecting. The sun came up and it gave a gorgeous view over all of the peaks. After enjoying the beautiful sunrise we realized we now had to hike back down, ugh. We took the 750 steps down the summit and then took a different route, the 3750 Steps of Repentance laid by a monk as a form of penance, to arrive at the St Katherine's Monastery. The guidebook definitely made this hike sound easier than it was, especially when you haven't slept all night! We had a look around the Monastery but there were too many large tour groups to really enjoy it.
When we got back to Dahab, Nigel's friend Mark was visiting from Sharm so instead of going straight to bed we went straight to the bar. We have tonight and tomorrow night and then we are off to Israel and Jordan for a couple of days before heading to Europe. I am excited!
Hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment