A day in the desert

Speeding through the desert at midnight on route to St Catherine’s protectorate where the infamous Mt Sinai lies, it would be a race against time for us to make it up the mountain before sunrise.

I’d had no sleep since the previous night, accepting at the last minute a spot on this tour because it was something I felt I should do while the opportunity was there. While I’m not a religious person, having been to a protestant school I remembered enough to know that Mt Sinai (or Moses Mountain as it is to locals) was important, though not quite why.

The mountain itself is 2285 meters high, and in the dark we struggled along the rocky, dusty track that is more suited to camel’s hooves than hiking boots designed for humans. I did spare a thought for Moses making this journey and wondered if he cursed as much as us, but I am told he took 40 days to reach the summit – not two hours.

After an initial climb the track winds up and around several other mountains. The bedouins (“desert people”) who live in the valley have strategically built tea houses about every 400m once the ascent starts to get tough. They have also built (very) long drop toilets, which are usually required within 5 minutes of drinking their sweet-tasting but questionably luke-warm tea. There is another option for getting to the top but it involves 3000 steps, which would no doubt lead to crippled knees and ringing thoughts of ‘what goes up must come down’.

In the end we did make it to the top just as the sun was appearing (or close enough that we’re claiming it. With the mosque and church at the very top shut, we decided the last 700 steps weren’t worth the effort). It was nice, but can’t say I felt a spiritual connection beyond using the holy father and his son’s names in more varied ways than I would on a typical morning.

Afterwards we visited St Catherine’s monastery in the valley below Mt Sinai and the oldest functioning monastery in the world, with places of worship for Jews, Christians and Muslims. The first known chapel was built there around the burning bush (google it – I’d stopped paying attention by this point). 

The next day after a well-deserved sleep I trekked out again, this time to burn around the desert in a jeep with possibly no suspension (glad now my sister is studying physio). More tea with the Bedouins (this time no toilets… must be more observant in the future), then to Abu Galem (the Blue Hole) for some spectacular snorkelling.  Here you can look across the Red Sea and clearly see the mountainous coastline of Saudi Arabia, which is about as close as any sane western girl wants to get to it.

At various opportunities over the last few days I’ve asked locals how they feel about the recent political troubles (they refer to it as “the revolution”) and today was the first time I met someone staunchly against it. I’m hoping to write an article for a newspaper at home so you’ll have to wait until its published for more, but suffice to say media reports have been extremely one-sided and Egypt has very much become a country divided, with many fearful of what the future now holds.