Mt. Sinai

Mt. Sinai is the mountain in the Bible where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. This and the pyramids were our main objectives in Egypt. The trail up Mt. Sinai starts behind St. Catherine’s monastery, and in order to climb Mt. Sinai to see the sunrise, we had to be up by 2 am.

This meant that we got a whopping 2 ½ hours of sleep. When the alarm went off, I popped out of bed feeling like a million Vietnamese Dong. The air was very chilly outside. There are two established routes up the mountain, the ‘Camel Trail’ and the ‘Stairs of Repentance’. We took the camel trail up. Hiking up the first valley, we saw the stars for the first time. These were the brightest stars I have ever seen. It was like a blanket of bright white over us. As we made our way through the valley, we walked through a field of hundreds of camels. It was surreal, walking in the dark under the stars through hundreds of silent camels sitting in the dirt looking at us. Somewhere in the valley some Bedouin were playing music. Dustin started singing the Arabian Nights song from Aladdin, and I just tried my best to soak it all in.

We made it to the peak a little before five. The wind at the top was bitter cold. I haven’t been that cold in a long time. When we arrived at the top, there were a few kids from Minnesota up there shivering under some blankets in the dark. We got out our bags and huddled together to stay warm. This was one of those times where body heat was the only option, so we got really friendly. The sunrise was absolutely amazing. We had been traveling for about 23 hours to get there, and we did it. The view was extremely beautiful, and we saw all the crazy rock formations for the first time as it became light. It is not really possible to describe the feeling of accomplishment and overwhelming beauty that we felt at the top of Mt. Sinai.

Ashley is a really good photographer and took some awesome photos that I have posted. We stayed at the top until 7 and headed back down the stairs. This trail was pretty amazing and must have taken forever to build. We grabbed some breakfast at the monastery and showered up, and by 9 we were back in the taxi heading to the coast. We passed out as soon as we got in the car.