Mt Sinai
Luxor, Egypt
Day two at Dahab started out with me bumping into my old friends from Syria, Eddie and Katharine, the Australian couple! I say the travelers circuit is indeed small sometimes and it's pretty crazy when you keep meeting up with people in different countries. Rob and I met up with Leslie and Sarah and the four of us hunted down some lounge chairs to soak in the sun. Amazingly, this would be one of the only days warm enough to actually lie out and tan as the rest of my days in Dahab were rather windy.
After having gone a few days without a felafel sandwich, I figured that I'd have no problem finding one in Dahab for lunch. Turns out, that getting a felafel sandwich in Dahab for lunch is almost an exercise in futility! In Syria and most of Jordan, you had to go out of your way to not eat a felafel, whereas in Egypt I couldn't even get one! After walking around for the better part of an hour, even venturing way out to the "locals" part of town, we finally stumbled across a place appropriately called "The Felafel Restaurant", which happened to be "Temporarily Closed for Renovations". Ultimately, I did manage to get my felafel sandwich but I had to resort to getting it at an actual restaurant, which of course made it about 10 times more expensive then a felafel normally is...
One of the main "day trips" to do from Dahab is to hike Mount Sinai. Legend, or religion, has it that Mount Sinai is the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Beats the heck out of me if that's true or not, but I do know a good hike when I see one and Mount Sinai is a great hike. One of the things that makes the hike up Mount Sinai so interesting is that it's done in the middle of the night, so that you arrive at the summit in time to catch the sunrise. Just about everyone who visits Dahab or the Sinai Peninsula does this hike, so it's not like you're conquering some hard to scale summit. In fact, it's pretty much a highway of travelers and tourists who make the 2 hour hike to the summit, which apparently includes over 3000 steps carved out of the rock (I didn't count, but the steps are there near the top). People who can't seem to hike, or maybe just have too many Egyptian pounds burning a hole in their wallet take a camel to the top and there's no shortage of camel owners all along the hike. The smarter camel owners position themselves about half way up, because few people actually get on a camel right at the start, but once they get climbing, well, then a camel ride to the top doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. It's also kind of sad that all along the way there are little "restaurants" and "cafes" that will sell you anything from water to food to souvenirs, all at nicely inflated prices. In fact, I think the price of drinks and food actually does go up the higher up the mountain you get!
Our group consisted of myself, Gassam, Fawaz, Sarah, Leslie, Rob and a bunch of other travelers all staying in Dahab. It also included one crazy, drunk, French Canadian who provided some solid entertainment on the van ride from Dahab to the base of Mount Sinai. Thankfully, he kept repeating "I'm an American" and "I'm an accountant" as he told us all about the countries he likes, the countries he doesn't like, the people of those countries, world politics, world economics and whatever else came to his mind. (For some reason, he really hates Spain and Spanish people, no idea why, but he sure made us understand that.) The guy was probably in his mid 50's and honestly bore an uncanny resemblance to Nick Nolte's famous mug shot, seriously. Not to mention that this guy was about to start a 2+ hour hike, at night, to the summit of the highest peak around while wearing sandals, shorts and carrying a bottle of whisky, half empty I should add.... At least he was entertaining...
Upon arrival at the base of Mount Sinai, we somehow "inherited" a guide named "Moses". Obviously that's not his real name but it was at least easy to remember. You really don't need a guide to climb Mount Sinai, in fact all he really did was to slow down us faster hikers so that the rest of the group could catch up (the hike could easily be done in about 1.5 hours if you're in average shape). Not surprisingly, the summit is kind of small and with most of it being taken up by a church, flat space to lie down on to watch the sunset is at a premium. This is where "Moses" made his pay and directed us to the rooftop of some unused structure which provided ample flat space for our group to bed down. They even provide you with mattresses and blankets (for a price, of course) and combined with our sleeping bags we all huddled together and waited a few hours for the sun to rise.
Frankly, if you've ever waited for the sun to rise you know that it's a bit like watching paint dry. Not a lot changes from say 3am to 5am in the morning. It's just dark, windy and way colder then you thought it should be for a place in the Egyptian desert. Some of us had a little nap, others just sort of shivered while some just stared at the horizon, waiting for the sun to show itself.
After a few hours of this, and to every ones amazement (why I don't know, because the sun rises every day), but the sun does rise over the horizon and you get a rather nice view over the valley before and for the first time actually see what you hiked up. It's all great and everyone feels warm and fuzzy inside but as quickly as the sun rose, it's all over. For some reason, people spend hours watching the sun set yet only minutes watching the sun rise. I'd have stayed up there longer, but within 30 minutes of the sun rising, the summit was almost empty!
Our group packed up and we all slowly made our way back down to the parking lot. Turns out that the French Canadian guy was too drunk to make it anywhere so he paid a huge amount of money to have the van drive him all the way back to Dahab without even starting the hike. At least he tells everyone he's an American!
On the road back to Dahab, Gassam and Fawaz hoped out of the van and caught a mini bus back to Nuweiba, as they had to return to Jordan that night. Rob and I returned to Dahab and dumped the Mohammad Ali camp in favour of the Alaska Camp, which was half the price and cleaner. (Rob and I split a room for around 2.50$US each...)
While having lunch out on the strip with Rob, Helen walked past and decided to join us for food. Turns out she had been learning backgammon and since Rob and I wanted to learn, she started teaching us the basics. You have to appreciate that backgammon is played everywhere in the Middle East and every restaurant has at least one board that you can play on. Helen and I would go on to play dozens of games over the next two weeks...
By now, the wind had started to pick up and the nights were getting cooler. Rob, Helen, myself and Katharine (Helen's roommate and other bartender at The Tree) all hit up a great locals place for dinner called King Chicken before heading back to the Tree for some drinks and more backgammon.
Drinks and backgammon would prove to be order of the day in Dahab for the next two weeks...
Kenny
Day two at Dahab started out with me bumping into my old friends from Syria, Eddie and Katharine, the Australian couple! I say the travelers circuit is indeed small sometimes and it's pretty crazy when you keep meeting up with people in different countries. Rob and I met up with Leslie and Sarah and the four of us hunted down some lounge chairs to soak in the sun. Amazingly, this would be one of the only days warm enough to actually lie out and tan as the rest of my days in Dahab were rather windy.
After having gone a few days without a felafel sandwich, I figured that I'd have no problem finding one in Dahab for lunch. Turns out, that getting a felafel sandwich in Dahab for lunch is almost an exercise in futility! In Syria and most of Jordan, you had to go out of your way to not eat a felafel, whereas in Egypt I couldn't even get one! After walking around for the better part of an hour, even venturing way out to the "locals" part of town, we finally stumbled across a place appropriately called "The Felafel Restaurant", which happened to be "Temporarily Closed for Renovations". Ultimately, I did manage to get my felafel sandwich but I had to resort to getting it at an actual restaurant, which of course made it about 10 times more expensive then a felafel normally is...
One of the main "day trips" to do from Dahab is to hike Mount Sinai. Legend, or religion, has it that Mount Sinai is the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Beats the heck out of me if that's true or not, but I do know a good hike when I see one and Mount Sinai is a great hike. One of the things that makes the hike up Mount Sinai so interesting is that it's done in the middle of the night, so that you arrive at the summit in time to catch the sunrise. Just about everyone who visits Dahab or the Sinai Peninsula does this hike, so it's not like you're conquering some hard to scale summit. In fact, it's pretty much a highway of travelers and tourists who make the 2 hour hike to the summit, which apparently includes over 3000 steps carved out of the rock (I didn't count, but the steps are there near the top). People who can't seem to hike, or maybe just have too many Egyptian pounds burning a hole in their wallet take a camel to the top and there's no shortage of camel owners all along the hike. The smarter camel owners position themselves about half way up, because few people actually get on a camel right at the start, but once they get climbing, well, then a camel ride to the top doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. It's also kind of sad that all along the way there are little "restaurants" and "cafes" that will sell you anything from water to food to souvenirs, all at nicely inflated prices. In fact, I think the price of drinks and food actually does go up the higher up the mountain you get!
Our group consisted of myself, Gassam, Fawaz, Sarah, Leslie, Rob and a bunch of other travelers all staying in Dahab. It also included one crazy, drunk, French Canadian who provided some solid entertainment on the van ride from Dahab to the base of Mount Sinai. Thankfully, he kept repeating "I'm an American" and "I'm an accountant" as he told us all about the countries he likes, the countries he doesn't like, the people of those countries, world politics, world economics and whatever else came to his mind. (For some reason, he really hates Spain and Spanish people, no idea why, but he sure made us understand that.) The guy was probably in his mid 50's and honestly bore an uncanny resemblance to Nick Nolte's famous mug shot, seriously. Not to mention that this guy was about to start a 2+ hour hike, at night, to the summit of the highest peak around while wearing sandals, shorts and carrying a bottle of whisky, half empty I should add.... At least he was entertaining...
Upon arrival at the base of Mount Sinai, we somehow "inherited" a guide named "Moses". Obviously that's not his real name but it was at least easy to remember. You really don't need a guide to climb Mount Sinai, in fact all he really did was to slow down us faster hikers so that the rest of the group could catch up (the hike could easily be done in about 1.5 hours if you're in average shape). Not surprisingly, the summit is kind of small and with most of it being taken up by a church, flat space to lie down on to watch the sunset is at a premium. This is where "Moses" made his pay and directed us to the rooftop of some unused structure which provided ample flat space for our group to bed down. They even provide you with mattresses and blankets (for a price, of course) and combined with our sleeping bags we all huddled together and waited a few hours for the sun to rise.
Frankly, if you've ever waited for the sun to rise you know that it's a bit like watching paint dry. Not a lot changes from say 3am to 5am in the morning. It's just dark, windy and way colder then you thought it should be for a place in the Egyptian desert. Some of us had a little nap, others just sort of shivered while some just stared at the horizon, waiting for the sun to show itself.
After a few hours of this, and to every ones amazement (why I don't know, because the sun rises every day), but the sun does rise over the horizon and you get a rather nice view over the valley before and for the first time actually see what you hiked up. It's all great and everyone feels warm and fuzzy inside but as quickly as the sun rose, it's all over. For some reason, people spend hours watching the sun set yet only minutes watching the sun rise. I'd have stayed up there longer, but within 30 minutes of the sun rising, the summit was almost empty!
Click to view photos in a new window.
Our group packed up and we all slowly made our way back down to the parking lot. Turns out that the French Canadian guy was too drunk to make it anywhere so he paid a huge amount of money to have the van drive him all the way back to Dahab without even starting the hike. At least he tells everyone he's an American!
On the road back to Dahab, Gassam and Fawaz hoped out of the van and caught a mini bus back to Nuweiba, as they had to return to Jordan that night. Rob and I returned to Dahab and dumped the Mohammad Ali camp in favour of the Alaska Camp, which was half the price and cleaner. (Rob and I split a room for around 2.50$US each...)
While having lunch out on the strip with Rob, Helen walked past and decided to join us for food. Turns out she had been learning backgammon and since Rob and I wanted to learn, she started teaching us the basics. You have to appreciate that backgammon is played everywhere in the Middle East and every restaurant has at least one board that you can play on. Helen and I would go on to play dozens of games over the next two weeks...
By now, the wind had started to pick up and the nights were getting cooler. Rob, Helen, myself and Katharine (Helen's roommate and other bartender at The Tree) all hit up a great locals place for dinner called King Chicken before heading back to the Tree for some drinks and more backgammon.
Drinks and backgammon would prove to be order of the day in Dahab for the next two weeks...
Kenny
posted by Kenny Carruthers at 1/09/2006 01:39:00 PM
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