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Day 8-Trek to Mt Sinai
Our next destination was St Catherine's City. The St Catherine’s monastery situated in the foothills of Mt St Catherine and Mt Sinai were the places of interest in this region. St Catherine's monastery is one of the oldest monasteries where among others the burning bush is located. Mt Sinai also holds religious significance were Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. A trek to Mt Sinai and watching the sunrise from the summit is also supposed to be a memorable experience which was in our itinerary.
Someone from the tour agency was supposed to escort us from the resort to the bus which would go to St Catherine's. We were eagerly waiting at the resort reception with our bags. We read in various articles that it would be very cold early in the morning when we reach St Catherine's. So we packed gloves, scarves, jackets etc along with some biscuits and water bottle. The person came at 10 PM. In a flash of a second we were following him and within few minutes we boarded the bus that was waiting in the main road. The bus was already filled with tourists of different nationals. The bus journey was comfortable except for a couple of times in the midnight when we were asked to show our passports/visa to few Egyptian authorities. They were just doing their duty, so no complaints there..
At St Catherine's, the plan was to trek to the summit of Mt Sinai, watch sunrise, visit St Catherine's monastery and finally get into the bus. Our tour operator left us with a guide and told us to return back to the bus by 8 AM. It was pitching dark and the torch we carried came in handy. There were around 20 tourists in our group. We started our trek to Mt Sinai at around 2:30 AM following our guide.
There are two principal routes to the summit. One , the longer and shallower route the other steeper and shorter. During the ascent, we took the longer route. The climb up the cliff was a bit tiresome, but the thought that I would be seeing sunrise from the top of Mt Sinai kept me going. As morning broke, we could see a lot of people making a beeline to the summit. As Mt Sinai also holds religious importance, there were lots of elderly people walking with sticks and riding in the camel to reach the top. After some point, the path becomes so steep and narrow that the camels can no more walk. At this point, you can opt to be carried in a chair by a couple of men, of course for some Egyptian pounds.
It took around 2 1/2 hours for us to reach the summit. The view was amazing from the summit. Sun hadn't showed its face yet. We managed to sit on a rock facing east to behold the spectacular sunrise on Mt Sinai. Nature had different plans. The clouds played a spoil sport and as the time passed by, the day light broke, but no trace of sun. Now everyone waiting for the sunrise realized that the clouds had hid the sun. So we got down the rock and walked here and there (mostly following people with sophisticated cameras..They would definitely be more desperate to see the sun than us :))to at least see the sun once. How can you come back without seeing the sun (rise) at Mt Sinai. Somehow we managed to see it. There was nothing great about it, it was the usual sun. :-), but I felt happy..
The descent directly led us to St Catherine's monastery. The monastery is surrounded by a huge wall.
We entered inside, saw the burning bush, took some photos, went inside the monastery, saw some amazing paintings and came out.
We just watched TV the rest of the day and went for a walk in the night to have a glimpse of the night life in Naama Bay, full of life, vigor and color.
As a side note, within few minutes of getting down the bus, we were feeling hungry, more because we got up so early. The biscuits that we carried helped us quenching our hunger. If you are also like us, its advisable to carry something light to munch on.
We stayed back at the resort the rest of the day watching TV. We were supposed to checkout the next day morning. Our bus to Cairo was only at 10 in the night.
Day 9
We did not have any planned activity either. There was this quad runner which I wanted to give a try. But dropped the idea for no particular reason. We enquired at the reception if we can checkout later in the evening. The manager said we can, by paying 100 EGP. We accepted. We went for snorkelling. My husband read in the "rough guide" that somewhere at the end of the beach, you can find lot of lovely corals. We walked from one beach to the other in search of that "spot", but in vain. My husband did snorkelling on the way in every private beach(he could not end his quest for seeing beautiful corals and hundreds of varieties of fish), calling me occasionally if he spotted a really nice coral surrounded by a school of fish. We came back to the resort in the afternoon, packed our stuff, paid 100 EGP to the manager and checked out in the night. We took the taxi to the bus station and boarded the bus to Cairo. Our 7 days stay in the "heaven on earth" came to an end. If these 7 days were nothing but pure fun, the rest of the days in Egypt took us back in time, to the time of pharoahs and their splendid temples, which was also a fun in different way.
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