Adventures on the Sinai Peninsula...

So, this weekend I escaped from cairo and explored a little bit of the rest of egypt. A group of us (initially 10 but for one reason or another -including a broken foot and a bad case of the flu- it ended up only being 5) rented a van and headed to the Sinai Peninsula... for those of you who aren't up on your Egyptian geography- the sinai is the part that sticks out into the red sea, between mainland egypt and saudi arabia... it also borders Jordan and Israel (or Palestine, depending on who you ask!). We left right after work on Thursday and drove straight to Mt. Sinai- we got there about 2:30am and started climbing. We reached the top at around 5:15am, about 20 minutes before sunrise. The climb wasn't too bad, but definitely hard work (sort of like the Grouse grind, but longer and more drawn out...), but the view from the top was definitely worth the effort- the scenery was unreal- sort of like a cross between Utah and mars (not that I've been there...). On the way up, we passsed two "camel stations" -apparently a lot of people can't walk up all the way so they can ride a camel instead- since it was dark, the first one took us by surprise, suddenly we were confronted with a really strong camely smell- I don't know if you've ever smelled a goat in heat (those of you who worked at camp with me will remember Tarva) and a lot of strange noises... once our eyes adjusted the light (or lack thereof) we noticed there were camels EVERYWHERE...thankfully they were friendly...and if you look past the smell, they are actually pretty cute. We had been warned to dress warmly, but it's hard to really believe it will be that cold when the temperature at the bottom is about 25C in the middle of the night, but they were right! It was absolutely freezing at the top- I could hardly get my fingers moving enough to take a photo of the sunrise. We finally made it to the bottom of the mountain at about 8am, covered in dust, stinking of camels and completely exhausted. At the base of the mountain there is a famous monestery called St. Catherine's, but the day we were there, it was only open between 11am-12pm, so we decided not to wait.

We got back in the van and drove about 2 hours to a resort town on the Red Sea called Sharm El Sheikh in time for a nap, lunch and some much needed R&R on the beach. Sharm is known worldwide for its scuba diving and I can see why- even standing in water up to my knees, I saw lots of amazing sealife- lots of little Nemos and an incredible foot long blue and yellow guy...one night was definitely not enough- a few of us are already planning a trip back. On the way home we even stopped at a real egyptian truck stop (pictured above). I will leave you with that and some other photos from the weekend...I think most of them are self explanatory.

I move into my new apartment tomorrow, just in time for my parents' visit in just about 10 days!

Bye for now everyone, I hope you're all well! xo C