Always Thinking One Step Ahead

I spent this past weekend at Mt. Sinai with 10 friends, friends-of-friends, and friends-of-friends-of-friends (it was quite the group, let me tell you). It was a fantastic experience, and as God is my witness, one that I will never, ever feel the need to repeat. Let me put it this way, for future study abroad students or potential foreign tourists: if your idea of fun does not include a 3.5 mile uphill hike, followed by sleeping (and I use the term loosely) on top of a mountain, followed by waking to see the sunrise just before 6 AM, followed by a 3.5 mile climb downhill, then Mt. Sinai is not a good weekend activity for you.

The drive between Cairo and Mt. Sinai is supposed to take about 9 hours; we made the drive there in 7 and the drive home in about 6:30, thus proving that our bus driver graduated from the same school as myself and my father, wherein we are taught to regard speed limits as mere suggestions of how fast you might wish to go, but please, for goodness' sake, don't limit yourself. That would be the real crime. The bus was a bit cramped with 11 of us, but the price was right and the company entertaining. We ate an enormous lunch at a restaurant inside the preservation area before heading over to the trail entrance.

This was when our troubles began. There are two trails to the top of Mt. Sinai, the Camel Trail, which is a series of sloping switchbacks culminating in 750-odd stone stairs to the summit, or the Stairs of Repentance, which are 3500-odd steps that snake up the mountain to the summit. Arriving at the tourist police checkpoint just after 2 PM, we had hoped to get started right away, taking the Camel Trail up, but we ran into a problem: all tourists making the ascent, regardless of what time, are now required to have a registered guide with them. (Nevermind the fact that both trails are very straightforward, and since we would be overnight guests, all our climbing would be during daylight hours.) This isn't the first time we've squabbled with the police over having escorts on our various excursions (and wouldn't be the only time this trip, either), but in the end, they stuck us with Sulieman, nickname Alex, an 18-year-old kid who claimed to have climbed Mt. Sinai 1,003 times.

And I'm sure that his pace was perfectly appropriate for someone who climbed Mt. Sinai for a living, or even someone who has taken a lot more time to workout than I have. To say that the climb up was grueling is a gross understatement; by the halfway point, I felt like my lungs were going to collapse and my head was going to explode. To top it off, I've been recovering from a minor cold for a few days now, a recovery which is apparently going to be a bit prolonged now. It could have been a lot worse, though - Jessamyn, my friend and sometimes-roommate from my Eid vacation in Jordan got altitude sickness from the climb (about 7,500 feet), spent most of the night throwing up, and had an absolutely agonizing time on the descent and the subsequent bus ride home.

My frequent need to stop and rest on both the ascent and descent, however, gave me the chance to take some great photographs and to enjoy the scenery. The sky was absolutely amazing for the entire trip; only a few white wispy clouds during daylight, and clear skies providing a blanket of perfect stars at night. Granted, this probably kept it a little bit colder, but the view from the mountaintop far outstripped any I've ever seen in my life. I really loved seeing mountains again; after my Eid trip to Jordan, I've developed quite an affinity for deserts and mountains, and the Sinai geography is quite similar to that of the Jordanian mountains where I spent time in October.

We reached the top literally at sunset, snapped a few photos, and continued up a few dozen steps to the summit to rest, take in the view, and put on a few additional layers of clothing. Accomodation was Problem Number 2 of the trip: originally, several members of our group had expressed interest in staying on top of the mountain, while others, myself included, wished to stay a few hours at a local camp before making the ascent at about 2 AM. We had heard about a good place to stay from some friends who did Sinai before Eid; what we failed to register was that the camp was located in the town of St. Catherine, not within the preservation area itself. After fighting with the tourist police in broken Arabic over the guide issue, we decided not to push for the hotel, instead electing for everyone to stay on the mountain. We were able to rent blankets and thin mattresses at the top, and I ended up snuggling with three of my girlfriends under our collective four blankets for extra heat. My head was freezing all night - I wrapped my scarf hijab-style around my head and neck before going to bed, but the gauzy wrap did little against the cold. Aside from that, though the night could have been worse - I'd estimate that I probably slept a total of six hours between about 7 PM and 5 AM, when the early-morning tourists stared pouring in.

Caprill, Jessamyn and I all made the descent together the next morning - Jess and I were both slow-going because of health discomforts, and Caprill was good enough to mommy us all the way down, letting us rest frequently and making us drink plenty of water. We ultimately elected not to visit the monastery, after being informed by our friend Amanda that it was a) crowded, b) boring, and c) not possible/permissible to take photos inside. I did some shots outside instead, and we perused the vendors set up around the monastery. I bought myself a small blue stone vase (successfully haggled down to LE30) and some postcards; one of the guys on the trip managed to convince the vendor to sell him the Saudi-made kufeya off his back for LE65.

On our way out, we got into fistcuffs with the tourist police again, this time over their insistence that we take an armed security escort back to Cairo. We'd been told on Friday that we could sign a waiver and avoid the extra passenger, but come to find out today that this wasn't possible. After some grumbling from everyone, I pointed out the fact that this guy's trip to Cairo was his problem, not ours, and as long as we didn't have to pay for any of it, it didn't matter. Truly, I do not know what this guy's purpose was - well, no, I do, it's because we're Americans and Mubarak is, according to Jessamyn, "trying to cover his ass" - because we didn't get through security checkpoints any faster or more efficiently with him sitting in the front seat. We've almost been required to have escorts back on two other trips - Alexandria and Jordan - but both times the idea was dropped when they found out we were students rather than "real tourists." For me, it's a bit unnerving; I am well past the point where I consider the level of policing in this city to be anything that makes me safer, and certainly not any more comfortable with my surroundings. The security guy mostly kept to himself, talking to the driver occasionally, and I'm sure that driving back to the Sinai is going to be a great time for both of them...

Insha'allah I'll add some photos tomorrow - right now I'm off to eat a quick dinner with the roommate and then study for a grammar exam I have on Monday. Look forward to rocks and more posts this week!