Climbing Mount Sinai - In the steps of Moses

Stop at a bedouin store
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I wonder how many people in Toronto know the relevance of the name of the Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto’s downtown. I confess, I didn’t. Mount Sinai (also known as Gebel Musa or Moses Mountain to the locals) is believed to be the mountain where Moses spoke with God and received the ten commandments!

Of all religious figures, Moses draws a great following. After all, he's an Old Testament Christian prophet, one of four Muslim prophets and a principal Jewish prophet. Add to this the “adventure” appeal of scaling/climbing a 2285 metre mountain in the middle of the Sinai peninsula, that wedge of stony Egyptian desert between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba – and you can soon understand the throng of humanity that snakes to the mountains summit.

Mount Sinai (also known as Gebel Musa or Moses Mountain to the locals) is believed to be the mountain where Moses spoke with God and received the ten commandments!

Made it to the top and are snuggled in our blanket waiting for the sun to show up! (Missy is suppressing a yawn!)
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We left our hotel in Sharm around 11 pm and arrived at the valley floor of St Catherine's Monastery at the foot of the mountain around 2.30 am. We then walked part of the “camel path” before mounting on camels. The path is about seven kilometers long. This is called the camel path because you share it with the camels and it is somewhat easy to navigate yourself as you walk up the winding trails. Most of the spirited (and perhaps tight-budgeted) visitors walk this entire 7K trail while some (like Missy and I) choose to take the camel. However, there comes a point when even the camels can no longer continue this uphill journey.

The first hint of the sunrise...
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We dismounted our tethered camels and took a short break at the Bedouin shop before starting our final ascent. That’s the last stretch of 750 steep steps which you have to climb to get to the mountain’s top. These stone steps were cut centuries ago by a zealous monk and, although primitive, they aided us getting to the top.

It was almost 5.30 am when we reached the top. That’s where we rented mattresses and blankets from local Bedouins and then waited while our trusted Bedouin guide found us a good spot to camp out. Now it was time to wait (and, in Missy’s case, to take a quick nap) while we waited for the sun rise.

..and there it was!
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After the long and arduous climb, I was expecting the sunrise to be something quite spectacular. It was beautiful (as sunrises can be) but nothing extraordinary, I thought. It was all over within minutes. At one point, Missy was quite cross with me and gave me a look that seemed to say, “We stayed up all night and climbed the mountain for THIS?”. That wasn’t a good moment to remind her that we still had to walk down and that was all on foot – we didn’t take camels going down.

We didn't start the descent right away.  There were far too many people to begin with.  More importantly, I wanted to enjoy this moment, svaour this view and just watch the sun's rays envelope the mountains.  We had climed up in pitch darkness with our flashlights.  Now we could actually see the breathtaking beauty and serenity of our environs.  To think, somewhere on this peak, is where Moses stood and looked out at this very image.  We gave all the other tourists (there must have been hundreds if not thousands of them) a 30 minute head start.  We sat on the mountain's peak, ate some of our packed breakfast, took photos and then began our descent back to civilization.

Furious photography happening...
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We stopped at a temporary toilet tent along the way (it cost us LE5 each just to use the place).  Good thing, we were carrying our own toilet paper as there was none available from the person that collected money from us!

By now, we were quite awake and Missy was looking forward to the descent - which was actually a lot easier and quite fun. We soaked it the morning sunshine and discarded our layers as it started to get warmer. It took us just over three hours to trek down and when we were just a couple of metres away from St. Katherine’s monastery, I stepped on a loose stone and twisted my ankle. The pain was agonizing and my scream/yelp stopped everyone in their tracks. There was no way, I thought> I could walk the rest of the way. Our Bedouin guide gallantly offered to carry me and that thought alone strengthened my resolve to make the effort to at least limp towards my destination. This was the mountain of miracles, after all – I should settle for nothing less than instant healing (haha).

Sun kissed and loving it!
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And so I hobbled the last twenty minutes or so. Missy and I were both exhausted, dehydrated, sweaty and starving by the time we reached in St Catherine's Monastery at the foot of the mountains. The monastery stands on the foundations of a fortress constructed in the first half of the 6th century AD by emperor Justinian. Located in the monastery, is the fabled (burning) bush where God revealed himself to Moses. This green-leafed plant hangs in a dome-like formation, protected by a rock and cement wall. No photographs were allowed in the monastery and I was in no condition to take an extended tour.

Tourists making their way down...
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Our tour guide called our driver and made arrangements for the car to pick us up right at the entrance of the monastery (the guards examined my swollen ankle to confirm that I wasn’t just faking the injury to save myself a walk to the car park!). Our trusted Bedouin guide stayed with us to the very end and then waved us by (after we tipped him a very generous LE 100 for his help) and our last memory was seeing his yellowed teeth before we both dozed off in the van.