Dec 26 - Sinai

The events of this post don’t actually start on Dec 26; they actually start on the evening of the previous night, and the line between the two is blurry.

After Petra we had a nice lunch then a two-hour drive in a luxury, air-conditioned coach back to the Israeli border. Chatting with other people in our group, we found that most of them were spending a few more days at the resorts in Eilat and they were surprised that we were travelling on to Egypt. This should have been a clue. After all, as mentioned in a previous post we had been warned by the prophets of doom before our trip that going to Israel and Jordan was too dangerous, but we did the research and found that it was reasonably safe. Presumably these fellow travelers had done similar research and were also visiting these countries, but even they were skeptical that going to Egypt was a good idea…

Our itinerary for Dec 26 said something like “Overnight in Taba; drive to St. Catherine’s; two-hour hike up Mount Sinai; continue on and overnight in Cairo”. However, this schedule was written before the latest round of troubles in Egypt and we discovered that plans had changed as soon as we crossed the border into Egypt and met our new guides. Instead, we were driving the 2.5 hours to St. Catherine’s tonight, and it was already 9PM. Also, we would not be starting our hike up Mt. Sinai tomorrow afternoon, we would be starting it at 1:30 in the morning so that we could be at the summit for sunrise, meaning we had time for two hours of sleep at most.

Worse, the security situation in Sinai is not great for tourists and there was a real risk of kidnapping. We had two options: (1) wait around until 10PM for the next scheduled police-escorted tourist convoy out of Taba; or (2) chance it on our own (technically not allowed). Our guides decided to go with option #2 since “it’s not worth it for only two tourists”; I never got clarity if this meant that it wasn't worth it for the kidnappers to grab only two tourists, or not worth it for the police to bother protecting only two tourists. As they were breaking the rules by crossing the desert alone with us, our guides cautioned that if we do encounter any police checkpoints, Jessica and I should hide under blankets in the back of the van so the police wouldn't know we were there. At this point we took some time to reflect on the life choices that had brought us to this moment.

We arrived at our hotel in St. Catherine’s without incident (neither police checkpoint nor kidnapping) to discover it devoid of any other tourists, with just hotel staff and various gift shop owners waiting around for us. (“Is that your wife, sir?” they would ask, then “You’re a lucky man!” But they’re wrong… luck had nothing to do with it.) The recent political troubles have been very hard on tourism in Egypt, doubly-so this far off standard “Pyramids and Temples” tourist zone, so everyone we met was friendly and desperate to do any sort of business with us. I actually felt quite sad for the people here, so far from the political turmoil in the capital but so badly affected by it.

After a quick midnight meal and a scant 90 minutes of sleep, we were up again at 1:30AM to start our hike up Mt. Sinai. Not having realized we would be doing this hike at night we were NOT prepared for this and did not have the appropriate equipment or clothes. I didn't have a single long-sleeve shirt, so had to borrow a scoop-neck women’s sweater from Jessica and hide it under my t-shirt – that’s right, I decided that the backwoods of the Middle East was the appropriate place to start cross-dressing. We also made emergency purchases of a flashlight and gloves at the hotel gift-shop.

We had the help of a young Bedouin to guide us up Mt. Sinai and by 2AM we had set off, trudging up the mountain in complete darkness and shivering cold. On the plus side, the stars were beautiful and when I first looked up I saw a terrific shooting star, the first of a few I spotted that night. There were several huts dotting the trail up the mountain where you could rest and try to get warm, and in one of these about two hours later we saw a small group of loud, brash Americans. These were the first foreigners we had seen since entering Egypt and we've never been so happy to see stereotypical “ugly Americans”, since it meant at least we weren't the only ones stupid enough to venture to this part of the world.

Several dark and cold hours later, 5AM approached we had ascended to the base of the “790 steps”, the rock staircase (using the term “staircase” very loosely here, as it was really just a series of rocks at varying heights of 2 to 18 inches) that leads to the peak of the mountain, and by 5:30 we were shivering in a rented blanket leaning against the 4^th century church at the top wait for the Sun.

After sunrise we set back down, first covering the “790 steps” and then taking an alternate route down called the “3000 steps”. (Very inventive names, indeed.) In the daylight we were able to see the terrain for the first time, and were surprised at just how high up we had ascended in the night.

Nearly 4000 steps and four aching knees later, we were finally back down to the famous St. Catherine’s monastery, but unfortunately we couldn't go in because it was Friday (and too near Christmas).

After a quick shower and lunch at the hotel, we were loaded back into the van for what in theory should have been a four hour drive to Cairo. In reality it was not so simple: the most direct road was closed (in this case “closed” meant Bedouins were using it for drug running and would often fire at vehicles they didn't recognize), as was the second-most direct route (this time “closed” meant that this route was under the jurisdiction of the Northern Sinai Governorate, which had fallen into disarray since the revolution and therefore the risk for tourist kidnapping was too high). The result was that we had to drive the entire southern perimeter of the Sinai Peninsula to get to Cairo. In addition to the long distance, we were delayed as we had to wait for the police-escorted convoy of tourist vehicles leaving St. Catherine’s (which we immediately lost) and then every time we arrived at a security checkpoint we had to wait 20 minutes again for another police escort (again, immediately lost) before they would let us move on. (We were made even more nervous because besides not seeing any other foreigners on this journey, we didn't see a single other woman. Also, we were hundreds of miles and hours from the itinerary we had given to family for safety, so if anything went wrong then nobody knew where we were.) The result was that it took a fatiguing twelve hours to get from St. Catherine’s to Cairo, not arriving there until nearly 11PM, almost 22 hours since we had gotten up.

Upon reflection, someone should really write a book about how difficult it can be to cross the Sinai and what hardships you can get into climbing the mountains there. If they did, I would happily promote it, perhaps knocking on people’s doors to see if they would like to talk about it, or maybe even leaving free copies in hotel rooms.