(Near) The Mountaintop

From the beach resorts of Sharm el Sheik, you can take a three hour drive to make a three hour hike up Mt. Sinai. You can leave at 10.30 pm to start hiking at 2.30 am in hopes of seeing the sunrise from the mountaintop. And if you're really crazy, you can do it in January.

I spent one night in a lovely resort by the Red Sea this week, and the next night I spent shivering my way up to (very near) the top of Mt. Sinai. The Roommate, Roommate's sister and I had a lovely suite, whose balcony view is shown here. We spent the first day on the beach, during which time I wore SPF 60, a hat, a long-sleeved shirt and a towel over my legs.

I got a sunburn.

Then we headed into the adventure portion of the event. As much adventure as the Marriott has to offer, anyway. In our hotel lobby, we joined an Argentinian couple and six or so Canadians. Three other travelers were collected from nearby hotels as our guide told us some local history: Sinai, for instance, is so called because the craggy mountains reminded ancient Semitic folks of teeth (this was before modern dental care, of course). Then we settled in for a shivery 3 hour drive to the mountain.

It is cold in Egypt in the winter. Yes, I know that this is Africa (although Sinai is technically Asia) and where do I think I am, Minnesota? and living in Los Angeles/Cairo/not Illinois anymore has thinned my blood, but I find if more than a little chilly hereabouts, and more than massively chilly atop mountains. So I was as prepared as I could be, with sweatpants under my jeans, two pair of socks, two long sleeve shirts, a sweater, sweat shirt and leather jacket, gloves, hat and scarf. But I was shivering on that bus, and kept shivering until we began the long ascent. The fruit in my hotel-provided box breakfast froze.

If you've been up the Berkeley fire trail, imagine that hike for three hours in the middle of the night while the temperature hovers around freezing. Then add a bunch of camels and unpleasant Canadians.

Out host was a good guy and did a great job, running up and down the mountain with the greatest of ease, puffing cigarettes at every opportunity and keeping cheerful in the face of massive tourist bitchiness.

No, not me. This one Canadian lady had apparently signed up for a trip to fantasy land and was greatly displeased that things were not going as she had intended. First, after we had been walking about ten minutes and had been passed by a nearly endless stream of camel-peddling Bedouin, she pitched a fuss because no giant beast had been delivered to her at the parking lot. "The camel was supposed to be provided," she told our guide. "We could be sitting in a warm cafe right now and you could have arranged this yesterday!" The guide was rightfully confused because nowhere in this thing called reality had there been mention of camel-procurement in his job description. And it's not as if there were a dearth of the things; we were offered a ride every five minutes.

Eventually the angry Canadian got her camel and we kept walking. The number in our group (originally 14 - we even had a count off which I would screw up by laughing when I was supposed to be saying 5 and thus confusing whoever was number 6) dwindled as more and more people defected to ride camels. But I think walking was better. For one thing, when I was moving I was no longer shivering, and I even became so warm that I had to unzip a few layers. For another, camels are giant and terrifying beasts that make eerie moaning noises and don't smell particularly like roses. I was happy to walk.

We made stops in various Bedouin shops for a bit of warmth and tea (for some), but generally we were walking up and up and more up for 2 and a half hours. Finally we reached the final rest point, from which it was a mere half hour of steep stairs to the top. It was nearly dawn, so the group headed for the stairway.

Egypt is not the biggest fan of railings and their accompanying safety accouterments. These stairs were crumbly, carved into a mountainside, and even dotted with ice (Ice? In Egypt?). The worst thing, however, was the wind. Our guide told us later that the wind was unusually wild that night, and this remained true through our rather nail-biting plane ride the next day. Gust of wind would smack into us, filling eyes and mouths with dust so that every time I closed my teeth I heard the crunch of dirt in my mouth. After falling a few times, once on poor The Roommate (she survived), I took a break and watched the more intrepid travelers continue up the stairs. I also watched many of them blown over by the wind and finally decided that my numb rear end and sensationless finger tips signaled time to go back down. I think I made it half way up the stairs (guide said that there were 750 of them). Here is the path heading up from where I gave up.

Going down was easy compared to coming up, although I think that walking downhill is deceptively easy when it comes to physical things like achy ankles and knees. The sun's appearance, however, made the entire experience more human (even on zero sleep). The vistas are breathtaking.

The angry Canadian started pitching a fuss again when we toured the St. Catherine monastery. To be accurate, she started being bratty before we even began the descent because she was tired (I can't imagine why) and didn't want to see the monastery at all. "Why can't we just go back to the bus?" She said. As we looked at the fortifications built by Roman emperor Trajan, visited the chapel of the burning bush (yes, that burning bush - Mt. Sinai is known in Arabic as Gebel Musa or Moses Mountain, after all. This is where he received the Ten Commandments) and then the bush itself (you can make wishes!), she started going on about a restaurant and got the other Canadians on that track too. Don't worry about using the toilet here, we can wait for the restaurant, and other such nonsensical ideas. When I asked one why the hotel would provide box breakfasts if there was a restaurant booked, he couldn't answer.

Was there any restaurant breakfast scheduled in the Sinai/St. Catherine tour? Yeah, not so much. She insisted not only that we were due a restaurant in our tour, but also that there was one at the monastery. Our befuddled guide couldn't reckon that one out. So he offered to find a place on the way, which would have added an hour to the three hour return.

The problem for The Roommate, Roommate's sis and I was that we had to check out that day by 1 pm. The kindly concierge promised us we could stay until 2 because of the tour and not have to pay another night, but strolling in at 3 or 4? Not the best idea. Luckily the other Canadians convinced their crazy compatriot to allow the bus to head straight to the hotel, at which point she announced loudly that we'd better be reimbursed for the price of the breakfast we were skipping. Another passenger reminded her quietly that there was actually no meal included in the price and The Roommate, being much kinder than I, gave the Canadians her granola bars. I gave the angry lady nothing but dirty looks. The guide called his superiors about her complaints and handed her his cell phone to voice them, but she put her nose up at this. "I'll see him when I get back."

We made it in time. We got our one hour to shower and dress in clothing not spattered with camel dung and then had the whole day at the resort to do our darndest to remain upright before a late flight last night.

I'm glad I went up the mountain as far as I did and that I didn't try to go farther. The Roommate and her sister reached the summit and were nearly blown away on several occasions as they watched a group of Japanese tourists fall in unison and others crawl around to escape the insane wind.

The Bedouins who live around the mountain had no problem with the wind, of course. They also have no problem with the cold or the steepness. Several of them were clambering up the rocky path in sandals.

Plastic slip-on sandals.

There are more miracles on that mountain than those revealed to Moses.