Making Way to Sinai

After our great few days in the desert (this is Froody and a huge piece of quartz from Crystal Mountain) and oases, we returned to Cairo to take yet another bus to yet another beautiful place- Sinai. We had to take it easy in Cairo because I had some bad sinuses after our time in the desert dust. But, I did get better and we boarded a big bus for the long trip to St. Katherine's village near the base of Mt. Sinai.

OK, so we arrived at the village and, let me tell you, there really is nothing to it. It's main attraction is that you can sleep in a hotel or camp before hiking up Mt. Sinai. It's unknown attractions are that it is the base for lots of trekking in this area (with a guide, of course) and if we had known we might have opted to stay longer and do some hiking. Also, being in the interior of the peninsula it gets pretty frikkin' hot during the summer, so the hotels are built to stay nice and cool during the summer months, thus being frikkin' freezing during the winter. The hotel was called Safary "Moonland" Hotel and Camp and the managers were friendly. We paid 100LE for the room plus 15LE for breakfast (each). The food was OK, but not worth 15LE, but there really wasn't anywhere else for brekkies. Our room had hot water but not enough pressure for the shower to work. But, it was cheap.

ANYWAY-we spent our first full day at the St. Katherine Monastery. I've never visited a monastery before so really didn't know what to expect, except that we'd see the burning bush (yes, this is supposed to be THE. BURNING. BUSH. MOSES. GOD. and all that). Whoa, it wasn't what we thought- we expected to see some half-dead, dusty bush-thingy and not this amazingly healthy plant. Many people were quietly contemplating this miracle, praying around it, touching it. A few broke off pieces to take home. One surprise at the monastery was the gallery which featured many pieces in the monastery's private collection. Photos are not allowed! but we really liked all the icons (images of holy people) and appreciated the fact that it's the most complete collection of it's kind, the monastery having been declared protected by Mohammed so no one came in and defaced all the images like they did all over Egypt (and everywhere else, I imagine). We had to rush b/c the monastery is open from 9am-12noon and we wanted to check out the church. It was small and packed with chandeliers which, I was glad to see, were not electrified. It was so different from all the mosques we had seen. It was full of icons, gold leaf, the scent of burning candlewax.

I liked it.