Jimmy and Mary Around The World: Sunrise on Sinai

We left Cairo on a bleak rainy afternoon via bus to the small desert town of Saint Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, bordering Israel and Jordan and surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, the Suez Canal to the west and Sea of Arabia to the east. We arrived after seven hours on the bus, where we traveled through the town of Suez, under the Suez Canal and through the Feiran Oasis. We arrived in St. Catherine after dark, around 7 PM and were greeted by a friendly Bedouin man, the owner of the Beduin camp we arranged to stay in for the next two nights, the El Milga Bedouin Camp.

When we arrived at the camp we ate a small dinner and packed our bags for our venture out into the holy land in the middle of the night. We slept for a few hours before hoping into a truck and riding a couple kilometers down the road at 2:00 AM. By 2:30 we had found a guide, required by law due to the military presence in the semi-contested region, and were off into the night. The moon was shining brightly as it was the "Wolf Moon" of 2010, the brightest moon of the year. We could not have asked for a more memorable day for the climb up Mount Sinai (2,285 meters) locally known as Gabal Mousa.

We reached the peak in record time, just under 2 hours. We still had two hours before the sun was due to rise over the mountaintops of the holy land. We spent that time staying warm in a small and cozy Bedouin tent drinking tea and trying to understand the stories our guide so enthusiastically told.

Finally it was time for the sun to rise and we walked up a few stone steps to the highest point and watched as the bright red sun rose over the mountaintops to the East with complete awe. This is the very place that God spoke to Moses through the burning bush and provided him with the Ten Commandments, if you believe in the sort of thing. Regardless of your beliefs it was a truly beautiful place worth a visit.

We waited until the sun had fully risen and we began the trek back down the mountain. We opted to take the 3,750 stone "steps of penitence" through the valley down instead of the donkey trail we had taken up. It was nice to see the mountain from the other side, but the steps were often large and definitely gave you a good workout.

We spent another night at the El Milga Bedouin Camp having pleasant conversations about the Israeli Palestinian conflict with a French women, who volunteered in an Israeli kibbutz and British man who was recently denied entrance into Israel.

Overall it was really a beautiful little place that everyone should stay at when visiting Saint Catherine.