St. Catherine and Mt. Sinai – 14th & 15th January 2006

One of the things we wanted to do in Egypt was visit the Mt. St. Catherine monastery, which is located at the base of Mt. Sinai. This monastery is built on the site where Moses saw God transfigured as a burning bush. However, the monastery is closed on Sundays, which is the day that we will be at Mt. Sinai with the group. Tony, our tour leader, suggested that Fletch and I hire a car this morning and go to St. Catherine ourselves. We thought this was a great solution and arranged to be picked up at 8am on Saturday morning.

Mt. Sinai is located about two hours drive from Dahab, through quite desolate landscape. The area is heavily militarised, not only with Egyptian police and soldiers but apparently UN soldiers as well. The Sinai has been a source of conflict between Israel and Egypt and the military presence is to ensure that does not reoccur. For us, this meant the car was stopped frequently for checks. It was quite alarming to realise that while the car was stopped at the checkpoints, there were machine guns pointed at the driver and at us from afar.

The first indication that the morning might not run as smoothly as planned occurred about halfway to St. Catherine. The Egyptian agent who organised the car called us via the driver’s mobile to ask if we would still pay for the car if the monastery was closed when we got there. He kept assuring us that the monastery would be open, so we agreed to continue the drive and to pay for the trip.

Of course, when we arrived at the monastery, we found it was closed. We couldn’t really discern why it was closed, but we think that today must be a feast day. There were quite a few tourists and groups standing around the entrance, and we noticed that some were getting in after they handed over some money to the guard on the door. We decided to give that a try and thus engaged in bribery to enter the monastery.

In return for our cash, we were allowed to walk the path from the monastery gate to the ‘Burning Bush’. It was amusing to note the fire extinguisher sitting beside the bush. We also passed the well of Moses, although others claim that the well is on the path to Mt. Sinai. All in all, we weren’t overwhelmed by what we saw.

However, the guard noticed our disappointment and ran up some stairs to open a door. He called us inside and we found ourselves in the monastery’s museum, which houses a wonderful collection of icons, treasures, books, paintings and vestments. The earliest items date to the fourth century, the more recent to around the 18th. Of course, when other people noticed we had got into the museum, there was a bit of a stampede and the placed was packed in a very short time. We managed to stay in the museum for about 20 minutes. A monk then came in and yelled at everyone to get out, so we all scrambled out as quickly as we could. We didn’t get to see inside the chapel, which would have been the real highlight, but the museum was a fairly good substitute.

After leaving the museum, we drove back to Dahab. We passed a few hours quietly and then boarded our tour bus to drive back to St. Catherine. We arrived at our hotel around 8pm and went straight to bed.

At 2.30am we got our wake up call to get ready to climb Mt. Sinai. There is method in the madness of climbing so early in the day – we’ll see sunrise from the top. At 3am we left the hotel and we were on the path at 3.30am. There was a full moon in the sky, meaning the path was quite well lit. We were both surprised by the number of people on it – eight tour buses of Nigerians and a couple of Koreans as well. Add in the ever-present Bedouin guides and their camels and you have lots of people climbing a mountain in the middle of the night.

We set off quite determined to walk the whole path. After about 45 minutes, Tony decided that the pace for some of us was a bit slow and urged us onto camels. I got on a camel and Fletch walked beside it. He said the camel went at the perfect speed for him to walk beside. I made myself useful by holding the torch to light his way, the moon having slipped behind the mountain at that point. We continued like this for 45 minutes, until we came to the beginning of the steps to the top. When you walk up the camel path, there are 750 steps to the top of the mountain. They are the last section of the 3500 ‘Steps of Repentance’, which is an alternate path up the mountain. I hopped off the camel and we began the climb to the top.

We managed the steps in good time and arrived at the summit of the mountain by 6am. There we found a small church (which was closed), several hundred people, and very little space. Some Nigerians were, oddly, prostrating themselves to the moon and were engaged in very loud declarations of their faith. It actually seemed like they were trying to outdo each other – there was hysterical crying, screaming, beating of chests and so on. Add in the group of Koreans singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ and the summit of Mt. Sinai was not a peaceful place.

The sun didn’t rise until around 6.40am, so we passed the time trying to find the perfect spot to watch the sunrise. We opted to climb onto some rocks just below the summit on the eastern side of the mountain – this got us away from the crowds and allowed us to see in the sunrise in peace. It was freezing, though! We didn’t realise how cold we’d got until we went to climb down the mountain. The muscles in my left leg seized up and I couldn’t bend my knee to walk down the steps. After an excruciating 750 steps back to the camel path, I got on a camel to go back to the monastery. Paj, one of the girls in our group, led my camel down, while Fletch took the steps of repentance. His only comment about them was that they were very penitential.

It was about 9am when we arrived at the bottom of the mountain. Fletch went ahead to find some postcards of the mosaic from the church within the monastery since we had failed to gain entrance to the church the previous day. He returned with the postcards, and also with a cute, stuffed baby camel. It turns out that he had managed to trade his broken watch from Aleppo for the camel. We had time to go back to the hotel, shower and change, and then it was back on the bus to head to Cairo. That took seven hours, the only highlight being the Suez tunnel. We didn’t actually see the Suez Canal but we did see the ships floating through the desert in the distance.

Tomorrow is the end of the tour for some people, so tonight we’re having a farewell party for them. We’ll also have some new people join us tomorrow for the next leg of the trip.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

As you huff and puff your way up Mt Sinai, you’ll find that the Bedouin guides will run past you, wearing thongs and smoking a cigarette. Having to drag a camel along with them only slows them to a trot. The only way to make sure that the camel driver doesn’t speed off into the distance with your dearly beloved is to point out as clearly as possible that you, the pedestrian, have all the cash. This will make him stick to you like a Syrian shoe polisher on a slow day.