Alright. So, I’m typing this into word from Sharm Al-Sheikh and I will post it into my blog later, mostly because the pool is closed and I’m a little tired, but not quite tired enough to sleep. Well, that and everyone is either going out clubbing or going to bed, neither of which I’m a fan of.
Starting at Wednesday, I got up and went to class, like any other day, except this time I took my big suitcase with me, which got me a lot of strange looks and a lot of calls from taxis passing by. I didn’t really need as big a suitcase as I took, but it was that or my back pack and my back pack was not big enough for even the most basic essentials for four days in the desert.
Class was class, and as soon as it was over we filed on to the bus to wait for an hour until the second bus got there for the rest of us (and brought out lunch). Exactly like the trip to Cairo pretty much. After that hour, however, we were in for a treat. Twelve hours on a bus in psychotic Egyptian traffic, meaning swerving and swaying and the whole nine yards. I was fine for the first half of it or so, but my stomach still cringes at the memory of that last bit. It might have been better if I could have slept, but for some reason my mind was not drifting, so I was conscious the whole time.
Dinner consisted of a stop at a road side stand that sold chips, chocolate and soda. So… basically we all had a bag of chips and a candy bar. Not exactly nourishment. Then we piled back on and finally made it to Sinai. Literally Sinai, as in Mount Sinai, at two in the morning, where we filed out and put on our hiking boots. Or in most cases sneakers.
For those of you who don’t know the history, Mount Sinai, or Mount Mousa (Moses) in Arabic, is the mountain Moses climbed to get the Ten Commandments. At the top now is a tiny church, but it’s only there for people who’ve come for pilgrimage. No one practices there regularly.
The oldest monastery in the world, Deir St. Katherine, is at the bottom of the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore it. Apparently there are a lot of old texts from all the Abrahamic religions inside. There’s also a well that’s said to make you love your husband or wife more if you drink from it. I wanted to bring some of the water back to America, but we were on a tight schedule. All I saw of the complex was the outside and a little outer garden through which I walked to get to their one guinea squat toilet bathrooms. That itself was gorgeous. But anyway, back to the story.
From two in the morning to six in the morning we hiked. Or more accurately climbed. Since I don’t have the internet I can’t look up the statistics for you, but Mount Sinai isn’t exactly tiny. The path was a winding loop of rocks and sand with vertical drops on every side, no railings, and even less light. Most of us made it by the light of our cell phones, which luckily didn’t span very far, because if we’d seen how close our stumbles bought us to careening off the side, a lot of us probably would have given up earlier. It was a bit like walking through the Mines of Moria, for those Lord of the Rings fans out there
But we persevered. After about three hours of walking, we came to near vertical steps that took another hour. Luckily, I was in a group nearer the front, meaning most of us would rather die of exhaustion than take too many breaks. It helped, pushing each other. It also helped that every fifteen minutes or so there was another stand selling outrageously priced water, juice, and snacks. I’m not gonna lie, my anger at the ten guinea chocolate bars definitely made me want to reach the top more. That and my refusal to let the camel riders beat me.
You have to climb the last hour of stairs no matter what, but you can pay eighty-five Egyptian pounds for a camel to take you the first three. Every little bit another caravan of tourists, looking horrified that there was nothing more than a camel standing between them and their deaths, would wander past us. I wasn’t going to let them shame me like that though, and neither was anyone else in our group.
Basically what I’m getting at is that it was torture, and by the time we got to the top we all thought we were going to die. A few girls actually didn’t make it and decided to stay at the last rest station before the stairs, rather than take the last and most dangerous leg of the journey. I understand their trepidation, but I figure if you can make it that far, you might as well push the whole way, just to say you did.
Anyway, I’d kind of been hoping the top of the mountain would be this awe inspiring experience, and it was nice, but unfortunately it was tourist trap. People had been climbing the mountain all night, and there were hundreds milling around in a space made for about twenty. I saw the sunrise, I took pictures, I picked up a few souvenirs, and then I just wanted to get out of there. I’ll remind you, I hadn’t slept since I woke up for classes at six in the morning the previous day.
I don’t know how Moses did it.
The descent from the mountain was easier, but we were all in misery at that point, so I don’t think we acknowledged or cared. It was still dangerous, mostly because we couldn’t control our speed on such a steep incline, and there were still jagged rocks as far as the eye could see, but at least we could see the edge of the path as well as where the rocks were. It didn’t stop us from slipping, but it did stop us from outright tripping on them like we did on the way up. I twisted left ankle once and my right ankle twice, but they were all light, thank goodness. Some people came out much worse for wear.
We got to the bottom of the mountain maybe two hours after sunrise, met up in front of the monastery, and loaded on to the bus and drove to a hotel. But not to sleep, of course, just to shower and have breakfast. As it turns out, all of the Egyptian girls, one of the American guys who was in Egypt last year, and out program director weren’t stupid enough to attempt such a climb. So they slept, like normal people.
Honestly, I was just bitter at this point. Breakfast was pretty good, even if I was falling asleep over it. Once we’d all eaten, we got back on the bus and drove for about three hours to the coast city of Dahab. I popped two aspiring and slept this time, even if it wasn’t well.
Dahab, like most of the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, is a major tourist trap. They specialize in snorkeling and scuba diving and deal mostly with Russians and Italians, but it’s not uncommon for Americans to wander through. The Red Sea is spectacular, and you can see Saudi Arabia from the coast. I have pictures.
When we got to the resort (yes resort) at Dahab, we had an hour and a half before the group left for optional snorkeling at a place called Blue Hole. It’s an area where a meteor hit the coast, so there’s a really deep pool with all sorts of wildlife. There was no way I was going to be coherent enough to snorkel in an hour and half, so my plan was to sleep the four hours until dinner, then wake up and go the beach. That, of course, didn’t happen. I went to sleep and slept until six o’clock the next morning. Sixteen hours. That I needed. Badly.
I woke up barely able to move, but at least no longer tired. Stretching helped a bit with the soreness, but not much. Then I got dressed, packed up, and went to the best breakfast I’ve had in Egypt so far. They had everything American, like toast and omelettes and fake liquid scrambled eggs that they may or may not have forgotten to cook. But then on the other hand they had the best of Arabic breakfast, like breads and cheeses and mango juice. And a sweets table, of course, with donuts and honey drizzled delicacies. It didn’t really make up for the miserable day before, but I was willing to take what I could get.
The first thing on the schedule for the day was a safari in the desert, which confused us all. Sinai isn’t really known for its animals, and sure enough we saw a couple goats, but nothing or note. Turns out, the safari was meant for us to look at mountains, lots and lots of mountains. We piled into about seven different jeeps, drove on a road for an hour, off roaded for another half hour, and finally ended up in the middle of the desert, surrounded by huge cliffs and deep valleys. Valleys which we descended into.
We had about four guides and two Bedouins between us all. They interspersed themselves and we descended among the rocks for an obstacle course like hike in a hundred and six degree weather. I’m not going to complain about this hike, because despite everyone else’s whining, I really did enjoy it. Thanks to the different minerals in Sinai, the mountains are all different colors: red and yellow and black and green. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and when we took a break the Bedouins played drums on trash cans for us and sang in Arabic.
I got a little sun, but I’m not by any means burned. The only part that I really had any issue with was at the very end. Because we descended into a valley, we had to climb back out of it. We literally climbed a sheer cliff, having to find hand and foot holds, without any safety equipment. One girl literally started to hyperventilate when we had to cross this narrow rock bridge type construction. That part was fun though, and I didn’t have any issues. But after the first climb, we crossed a huge set of sand dunes and climbed a sand cliff to the top.
Sand is not fun. At all.
At least the end was at the top of that second cliff. We caught our breath and rehydrated for a while and waited for everyone else to finish. I was at the front of this group, and we had quite a while to wait considering some people were putting up a fight about such strenuous activities for the second day in a row. One of the Egyptian girls actually passed out, and one of the American’s got sick from drinking water too quickly. The Bedouins were friendly though, and I bought a souvenir or two from them as well.
We went back to the hotel in the same jeeps we came in. I definitely think I was in the best jeep. First of all, we were an all girls jeep, with myself, Kaylea, Tamar, Meghan, Grace, and Ustaaza Esma’. Esma’ teaches Egyptian for the program, and while I’d never talked to her before, I was happy for the chance to meet her. She was educated in France, speaks Italian almost fluently, and is incredibly sweet. We had a lot of conversations to and from the safari.
Ours was also the best jeep because we had the best driver and the only police officer. Whenever a large group of foreigners travels in Egypt, they have to have a tourism police officer with them. Officer Mahmoud, for whatever reason, chose our jeep, and so we were always in the front of the procession. He was also very nice about pointing out important landmarks on the road, like Sleeping Camel Mountain, which looks like a sleeping camel. As for our driver, Muhammad, when it got to off roading he was sure to make it as fun as possible for us. It was like a real life roller coaster. We were all screaming and flying out of our seats, all with Amr Diab (world famous Egyptian singer) in the background. It was an awesome experience.
After the safari, we returned to the hotel to pick up our bags and got on the road for Sharm Al-Sheikh. Sharm Al-Sheikh is an even more famous tourist destination than Dahab. It’s on the very tip of the Sinai Peninsula, and anytime I’ve seen rich Egyptians taking vacations in the movies, it’s always been to Sharm. We got into the resort at about six-thirty and I had an hour until dinner, so I called Mom and we chatted for a bit. She was busy with Church camp stuff, but at least she doesn’t have to read this blog as carefully ‘cus I’ve pretty much told her all of it.
Dinner was nice, a buffet, but the buffet was spread all around the room with different food tables between different sets of dining tables and it was very hard to know what was available and then get to it. It still had a fairly nice salad and pasta dinner. Even if the salad was a bit of a letdown, I was ecstatic to have it. We can’t eat the salad in Alexandria because it’s washed in tap water.
After dinner was free time, but apparently it’s customary in Egyptian resorts to close the pool at seven. Something about it not being safe after dark even though there are lights everywhere. I was disappointed, because after all that desert I really wanted a swim. There isn’t even a beach to swim on. Apparently it was the same story in Dahab, but I slept too long to notice.
With swimming closed to us, we didn’t have many options. I explored the boardwalk type area with Grace for a while, but there wasn’t anything that really caught my eye. The hotel was throwing a beach party at ten, but no one really wanted to go with all the tourists that were going to be there. It’s odd, being one of the majority again. Like I said, everyone here is Russian, so we blend right in. All the girls have been wearing shorts and bathing suit tops. I even saw some veiled girls getting weird looks. I was a little offended, because this is their country, but it just goes to show how different the tourist spots are.
Eventually, most of us ended up at the hotel bar, if for no other reason than it had the comfiest seats. We sat, some of us drank (lightly, due the great expense), and we chatted and played cards. When the group started to break up, some to go out on the town, others to go to bed, I headed back to the room to shower. I still had desert on me that I’d wanted to wash off in the ocean and/or pool. I also needed to clean out my purse. They told us to buy snacks in Alexandria for the bus ride, so I bought chips and a chocolate bar. The chips got eaten, the chocolate got forgotten about in a side pocket. In the desert. It only ruined a miniature notebook, and I was able to salvage the notes from it, so I’m just going to buy a new one and transfer them all when I get back to Alex.
That about brings you all up to speed. I’m thinking about waking up early tomorrow to go for a dip, because we’re not going snorkeling until ten, but I might just take my beauty rest instead and try swimming after. We’ll see.
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