"And he probably wasn't wearing shoes!"

The ride to Dahab was about 7 and a half hours long (and it was quite a ride through the winding mountains of the desert), so we arrived at our hostel, Seven Heaven at around 8AM. Well, most of us did. Because we had overbooked the mini-bus, we called another at the last minute, and as luck would have it, that bus ran out of gas about an hour outside of Dahab (where there is literally nothing but desert). I was not on that bus, thank goodness. Our bus debated turning around to pick up the people from that bus, but after driving a few miles and not finding the broken down bus, it was decided that we should just continue onto Dahab because we, too, were starting to run low on gas.

Everyone arrived by 10AM and we had a nice breakfast in the semi-outdoor lobby of our hostel, which was only interrupted by wild cats (a common thing in Egypt) a few times. After that, those that we becoming SCUBA certified needed to immediately begin their class. I and five others were not becoming SCUBA certified, so we had some free time, during which we took nice, long naps. We didn't go to sleep however before we decided that that night was our only chance to climb Mt. Sinai, which is about a two hour trip from Dahab. St. Katherine's Monastery at the base of the mountain is only open on certain mornings, so unless you climb on specific nights, you will not be able to visit the monastery, which was something we all wanted to do. And the way our schedule was planned, unless we climbed that night, the monastery would be closed.

So we had dinner on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean and then, at 11PM we met downstairs and began out two hour drive to Mt. Sinai. The drive seemed short in comparison to the trip to Dahab, but it was made interesting by a woman who yelled at our driver about how fast he was driving and, we think possibly to make herself feel safer, decided to wear a plastic bag on her head over her hat for the majority of the drive. This, of course, led to us calling her "Bag Lady" for the remainder of the night and next morning.

We arrived to Mt. Sinai a little after 1AM and began climbing at 1:30AM. Mt. Sinai is climbed at night for two reasons. First, if you climb at night, you see the sunset at the summit. And also, climbing during the day, especially now, would be entirely too hot.

The climb was harder than we had expected. The first part was mostly paths, but the incline was steep and because everyone climbs together at first, there are men selling camel rides everywhere. This makes things crowded and more complicated in the dark. After a certain point, camel-riders must remain on one path up the mountain, and those climbing on foot can take a different route (this is about mid-way up the mountain). It was nice to get away from the camels, but our route because a little more rocky at this point. The last fourth or so of the climb has everyone converging again to walk up the last 350 steps. These steps were steep and rocky and definitely the hardest part of the climb. Because we really hadn't planned much for the trip, none of us had lights and we resorted to using out Vodafone lights to see the steps. We also resorted to telling people after the climb that because of this Vodafone had saved our lives! We reached the top at around 4:30AM (ahead of the rest of our group, under the command of our guide, Tiger. We decided to leave the group behind when, early in the hike, Bag Lady began complaining to Tiger that he was going to fast and allowing himself to be pushed faster by 'these young people.' I don't know if Bag Lady made it up the last 350 steps. That would have been quite a feat. Though she did have a walking stick...)

The sun rose at around 5:30AM, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We stayed at the summit taking pictures, observing (many groups have prayer sessions at the top, which is very interesting. I think we saw a Korean group and also an African (Kenyan?) group singing and praying) and talking (all of us felt a little giddy from the high altitude, although it was only about 2200 meters. What can I say, I'm a sea level kind of girl!) The summit was cold, so we were sitting on camel blankets that we had rented, and I, of course had my pink blanket with me. We began hiking down a little after 6AM, and we decided to take the step route down. This route is not recommended for the climb up because even on the way down it is very difficult, as the steps are uneven and rocky. They are called the Steps of Repentance because they were built by a monk in repentance. We were surprised about how difficult the climb both up and down was. We actually wondered how Moses did it, considering, as one of my friends pointed out, "he probably wasn't even wearing shoes!"

We arrived at the bottom a little after 8AM, shopped around at some of the shops at the base of the mountain, and then went into the monastery when it opens at 9AM. The monastery is the oldest operating monastery in the world. I think it is home to 20 or so monks. It also holds over 2,000 icons. We were able to see some of these in the chapel there. We also saw the Burning Bush. It's not the actual bush, but it is from the same roots/seeds. It was almost surreal that we were seeing such historical things that are so central to our faith. It was definitely a worthwhile trip and hike that I will remember for the rest of my life.

By noon, we were back in Dahab. We had breakfast and slept for a while before going to the beach to watch the sun set over the water. That was gorgeous. Sunrise at Mt. Sinai. Sunset on the Red Sea. You really can't beat that. We then had dinner and walked around the boardwalk a bit (which can be annoying between all the vendors and restaurant owners trying to sell their products). The next day, we went snorkeling (when I say we I mean the non-divers. Those getting certified were busy with dives and classes all day, every day) at Blue Hole, an area of the Red Sea. It was beautiful! The reef was amazing and there were so many fish! Also, the color of the water is just unbelievable. It is so clean and so bright and very, very blue. It is also incredibly salty. When we returned to Seven Heaven, we took showers, which were also interestingly salty (but that opens up a whole other discussion on hostel quality, which I may get into in another post), had dinner, and then went to another restaurant for drinks. It was a really nice night and all of us, divers and non-divers, had a very nice time in Dahab overall.

Seven of us left the next morning to continue on with the next leg of our trip (which was still mostly in the stages of being planned as we went). It was a long and interesting travel day, which I will talk about in my next post, but it was well worth it. By that evening, the evening of September 26th, we were staying at a nice hostel in a town outside Petra, Jordan, where we planned to explore the next day!