Sinai Peninsula - Mt. Sinai

After a day in Aqaba in southern Jordan we decided to venture across the Red Sea onto the Sinai Peninsula. Given the politics and geography of the area, which will come into play later, we took a ferry to get there. It is remarkable how physically close together so many different countries are in the Middle East. Sitting at the beach in front of our hostel in Aqaba, Jordan (Al Aqabah in the top right corner of the map below), we could easily see across the water to Egypt, up the road to the right to the buildings and hotels of the city of Eilat in Israel, and down the road to the left at the mosques at the Saudi Arabian border.

The ferry was an experience in itself. It was scheduled to leave at noon, so we arrived at the terminal to buy our tickets at 10:30. After two treks up and down two flights of stairs with our luggage (up to buy tickets, down to pay the departure tax, up to get our passports stamped, down to get on the rickety old bus to go the 100 yards to the boat), we finally made it on to the boat an hour later. Then, since our journey was a few days after the Hajj concluded, our boat was packed with a ton of people who were returning from their pilgrimage to Mecca. As a result, it was extremely crowded and more than a little aromatic. After the hour long boat ride, and a 2 hour disembarkment process we finally made it to Egypt.

Egypt was definitely cheaper than Jordan and tremendously cheaper than the Gulf. Our first move was to hire a driver to take us to lunch and then an hour up the coast to the beach town we were staying. Total cost - $20. As we were starving, our first destination was Dr. Kebab, where we had some pretty good chicken shwarma and lamb kebabs. We then continued on to Dahab, a pretty cool beach town right along the Red Sea.

The main reason for the trip to the Sinai Peninsula was Mt. Sinai. Mt. Sinai is about 2.5 hours inland from Dahab, in the south central Sinai Peninsula. Reputedly where God delivered the 10 Commandments to Moses and appeared as the Burning Bush, Mt. Sinai attracts hundreds of pilgrims a day. While it is a fairly difficult trek to the top, we decided it would be a memorable way to spend Christmas Day, so we decided to hike to the summit for Christmas sunrise.

After arriving in Dahab on Christmas Eve, our first order of business was to hire a driver to take us to Mt. Sinai. Without too much effort, we found a cab driver who would pick us up at 2am, drive us to the mountain, wait for us to summit the mountain, and then take us back to Dahab afterwards for about US$25 each.

I have a few distinct impressions of Mt. Sinai. The first is COLD! The wind-chill was in the high teens during our trek from 4:00am to 6:30am where we reached the top to coincide with sunrise.

Second, it was isolated. We drove through hours worth of isolated desert to get to Mt. Sinai that were broken basically only by security checkpoints every 15 minutes or so. I cannot even imagine what how alone and isolated fleeing Jews, pilgrims, and other historical migrants in the Sinai must have felt in the frigid hostile environment without access to a heated 4x4 vehicle.

My third impression of Mt. Sinai is that it was beautiful. The actual hike up the mountain took a little over 2 hours. We walked with two headlamps but were able to see quite well thanks to the largely full moon. We were largely alone during most of the hike, with only the occasional Bedouin offering early morning Mint Tea or a camel to ride to the top to break the stillness.

We did stop once for a tea break and talked to some really nice Bedouin guys. They were very curious about our mobile phones and spent a long time playing with Owen’s blackberry. They desperately wanted to trade something for the blackberry and we negotiated to the point where they were going to trade one of their camels for the phone but in the end, Owen decided to pass.

While the hike to the top was both pretty and memorable, the view at sunrise was spectacular. We rented a blanket near the top from a little shop for the expensive (but well worth it) price of US$10 and watched for the sunrise. By around 7:30 a few hundred other pilgrims had joined us at the summit to watch the Christmas sunrise. While we were not given any new commandments, it was still an incredible experience.