We woke up around 8AM to begin getting ready and to be sure to have enough time to grab breakfast in the restaurant before we left. Unfortunately, the mattresses on our beds were as stiff as a rock and all of us woke up sore and I had gotten minimal sleep. We went down to the restaurant where we were served some really gross Egyptian coffee and some equally disgusting “fresh” squeezed orange juice which tasted more like orange soda than anything. But we received toast and croissants which were very good. We made our way downstairs to wait for our taxi. This time, a more taxi-like car drove up and we had a quick ride to the bus station which was actually a mall with a bus station in the basement of it. Unfortunately, no stores had opened up yet, but we were able to grab some snacks at a place that looked like a movie theatre concession stand. After that we went downstairs to wait for our bus to come.
When we got down there we stood and waited by our terminal and soon saw a group of guys wearing scarves that looked like Boy Scout scarves came up and stood near us. One was wearing a BoSox hat and another was wearing a Flagstaff, Arizona t-shirt so we figured they were American. Around 10:45 they let us start boarding the bus and as we were walking to the door we were surrounded by a bunch of men who looked as though they were in the Egyptian army. As we were trying to find our seats, we quickly realized that the Boy Scouts were not speaking English and one of the army men purposed to Liz in the first five minutes of the trip. It was an insanely long drive through a ton of desert which isn’t very exciting to look at for 8 hours. Halfway through we stopped at a little rest stop where we were able to have a break and get some food. We used the bathrooms and I don’t think I’ve ever felt any more dirty in my life. They were disgusting and had bugs crawling all over them.
Let me explain this bus to you real quick because I want you to understand that we weren’t in any first class, Greyhound bus here. The bus was old, not as bad as many I had seen driving around Cairo and Alexandria, but still old. The seats were pretty grimy and dirty and the head covers looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned in years. The bus was fortunately air conditioned, but very little air came out of the vents. I was right by the window so I had the privilege of getting beaten on by the sun. When I’d wake up after dozing off I’d find myself in a large pool of sweat. On top of that, half of the people didn’t have seats and were standing in the aisles for hours upon hours and our driver was a very angry old man and kept yelling and honking his unusually obnoxious horn. Most of the time I felt like we weren’t even on a legit road it was just somewhere someone threw some black top down and said it should be a road. We would see a random village here and there which looked as though no one lived or should live there.
After we boarded the bus again, we rode along for another couple of hours in which Liz was able to get a few e-mail addresses from random army men or just random men in general. We also got our passports checked every 5 miles practically which got annoying and at one point the guy stood and looked at Liz’s passport for about 10 minutes making us all a little nervous that we shouldn’t be there. After awhile, people started getting off the bus at random places, but don’t be fooled, they weren’t getting off at actual stops, it was just that the bus would stop in the middle of the road and they would get out. We still have no idea where any of them were actually going because we didn’t see a legit town for miles, or I guess in our case, kilometers. After a little bit the only vast desert landscape changed into mountainous desert. The mountains were unlike any I have ever seen before. They were very rocky and beautiful and huge! I’m pretty sure someone told us that this was the Sinai Mountain range, but I could be wrong. Along the way we randomly saw people laying there in the mountains and then we would see small homes built with cement blocks that had only openings for doors and windows. It was also unlike anything I had ever seen before. There were also some homes built right into the rocks in the mountains.
Finally, we got to this place where someone stood up and said that if you were going to the monastery you needed to get out and take a taxi the rest of the way there. We weren’t sure if this meant us and asked a random person if we should be getting off and they said yes. There was a Nigerian couple that we met as soon as we debarked the bus who said they were going to ‘Mountain Moses’ as well. (Most people there don’t know this mountain as Mt. Sinai, they all call it Mountain Moses). We took a cab a little ways down the road where we got all got a guide who was going to take us up the mountain. At this time it was a little after 7 I think and we had already planned on going up at night because it is apparently death during the day.
We walked over to where there were a bunch of camels laying and as our Nigerian diplomat friend was trying to bargain a lower price, we said that we’d be fine paying the 85 pounds that it cost and so we all got helped onto our camels. A lot of them were making really weird noises while we were standing there and Liz almost refused to ride one. They’re a lot less comfortable than horses and the worst part is when they’re standing up or laying back down because they kind of lay on the ground like a dog, but because their legs are so long they first have to get down on their knees and then lower to the ground or vice versa when standing up. They’re a lot taller than I thought they were and you sit on a saddle directly on their hump. In general, it felt like riding a horse only a little less comfortable. We got on our way as the sun was setting behind us. I still couldn’t get over how beautiful the mountains were. As we were going up, we found out that the Nigerian diplomat was taking his wife up to the mountain because she was sick and they were trying to get her up there for healing. He wasn’t very nice to the guides that we had and kept getting really angry because no one was leading his camel and he thought it was going to go over the cliff. Eventually he made them let him down and his wife was in a lot of pain on it and had to get off too. They tried to hike it part of the way but after we got a good distance in front of them one of the guides came up and told us that they turned around and went back down the mountain.
About an hour and a half to two hours after we started our journey we got to the halfway point where we were no longer allowed to use camels. It was about 7 km to this point. When we got there a little ‘coffee shop’ which was pretty much just a little thatch hut where the owner lived and had some candy bars and water. We got off the camels and sat down to take a rest. We got a flashlight there and they told us that the one man would be taking guiding us up the next part: The Steps of Repentance or Penitence (it is stated differently in different sources), which consisted of 750 steps. The man took Aeriale and Liz’s bags, but I kept mine because I really didn’t think the poor man could carry many more (he wasn’t exactly in the prime of his life). Much to my surprise, he was in better shape than all three of us combined times twenty. Walking up these stairs was beyond any workout I’ve ever had. Granted I do the stairmaster on a relatively regular basis and have apparently been climbing about 1000 stairs each time, it was nothing compared to this. It was so dark and because we were so high up the air was really thin which made it even harder for me to breathe. When we were almost there we stopped at another coffee shop and got mattresses and blankets and then only had five minutes left to go. We climbed the last few stairs and made it to the top, the sight there was unbelievable. By the light of the waxing gibbous moon we could see the mountain tops spread out before us and the stars were so bright and beautiful.
Our guide laid out our mattresses and blankets on the ground up on the mountain for us and we laid down to try and get some sleep. This was around 10PM but we were so exhausted from everything. When we got up there we were sweating like crazy. For a while, we laid there and talked about how ridiculous it was that we were laying at the top of Mount Sinai and how we just don’t do things like this…ever. After a little bit, we got the ‘Ahem’ from some woman who was sleeping on the top of a little old, shed we were beside so we decided we better shut up. I just laid there and looked at the stars and saw some really awesome shooting stars then I realized I needed to sleep. I kept laying there, but I’d just keep opening my eyes because I couldn’t get over how amazing the sky was. I finally fell asleep for a little bit and woke up around midnight shivering cold. I looked at Aeriale who had been tossing and turning earlier and I asked her if she was awake and she said yes and Liz was awake too because we were all so freezing. We laid there for a little bit laughing and trying to figure out what to do and then I realized that it would make sense for us all to share the blankets instead of each of us having one. They didn’t like it when I started my idea because I made them take off their blankets and then we got the one we were using as a pillow and layered them up. Because we were all sharing blankets now, Aeriale and Liz felt it necessary to get as close as humanly possible to me. Aeriale was on top of my one arm and Liz’s arm was underneath my other and I was squished like a sardine in the middle unable to move and in an awkward position. I eventually fell asleep, but kept waking up sweating during the night because they were so darn close. I threw the blanket off my head and tried to squeeze my arms out and fell back asleep, this time to wake up to Liz’s alarm and her telling us to hurry and wake up. I opened my eyes and in the distant horizon we could see the light from the rising sun. There was only a thin orange line of light against the mountaintops. We heard people talking and looked up and saw some people standing above us. I sat there pretty much in awe as the sun rose and taking in the situation that I was in. Here I was, 20 years old, at the top of Mount Sinai where Moses received the 10 Commandments from God, gazing out over the horizon watching the sun rise. After this experience my question of How could anyone not believe in God when you have moments like these? Of course sprang to mind. It was the most unreal and unbelievable experience in my life. After the sun was up we decided we needed to leave to get back down the stairs before it got painfully hot. The walk down was obviously a lot better than the walk up and it was amazing to see the mountains around us and especially the fact that we were 2642 meters up.
We got back down to the halfway point without any problems and met our camel driver there. We sat there waiting for a little bit and heard odd noises coming from the camel next to us as he was angrily flashing his teeth at us like a rabid dog and I told Liz that one was hers. As luck turns out, the girl who practically refused to ride a camel up the mountain and was going to hike it all, Liz, got the rabid camel (it wasn’t really rabid in case I confused you). As Liz and I were getting on our camels, with much more grace this time I might add, we heard Aeriale’s camel a little ways away making some awful noises too. From complete exhaustion, fatigue, and disbelief we just sat on top of our camels laughing. The ride down was much worse than the venture up. This time, we had to hold on much more tightly because we were going downhill (obviously). So that the horn of the saddle wouldn’t jam drive painfully into my stomach, I held it tight with both hands allowing blisters to form on my palms. There were other very uncomfortable things about the camel ride down that I won’t go through and of course, being in the desert, it was getting significantly warm again.
Relieved to reach the bottom, we paid Achmed quickly and left to find a bus to Cairo. They had told us that there would be one at 9AM and that gave us plenty of time to get tickets and find where to meet the bus. In the morning light, we were able to see Saint Katherine’s monastery much better. It turns out, the Monastery of St. Katherine is, according to wikitravel.com, a ‘Greek Orthodox monastery founded in the 6th century, one of the longest-running monasteries in the world and itself at the supposed location of the Burning Bush’.
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