Would have helped if they had installed escalators

On the last Friday of our holiday, I had the smart idea of climbing Mount Sinai, which is, apparently, the one that Moses climbed to get the 10 commandments. This idea of this was to climb overnight so we could see the sunrise. This meant they we were oicked up about 10 o'clock at night, drove for a few hours to the bottom of the montain and then made our way up at 2. It all sounded fine in theory, of course I had forgotten that the walk would be uphill.

We could have got on the back of a camel to walk us up, but that is just for weeds or those unable, and whilst it did hurt, and Tina was pretty much dead on her feet, we continued on foot, as if we can't do this when we are young(ish) what will we be like when we are old(er). The killer going up, though, was the fact there are 750 steps (well, rocks) at the top, so after two hours of walking we then had to get up those. We basically did those in little blocks to break them up, rather than attempting the 750 in one go.

It was a really clear sky at the bottom of the mountain, and we could see so many stars....but unfortunately at the top it was a littl cloudy, so I think the sunrise was not as great as it could have been. Some photos here to show you though.






It was cold up there so we hired a couple of blankets to keep us warm. I think Tina liked hers a bit too much




There were plenty of other people up there to watch. I wanted to get a picture from above walking up where you could see a stream of torches but it wouldn't come out, so here's some atop the mountain.



So you'd think that would be the worst of it, oh no. Coming down was not just a stroll, it was the 'other' way, which consisted of 3,500 steps down, which, I can tell you, is so much harder than it sounds, our legs were wobbling and we had to take several stops. Here are some pictures of the different routes from the bottom, the first being the camel trail and the second the steps down.




Afterwards, we had a trip around St. Catherine's monastary, with the people we went with, and had to endure questions like "Do the monks eat meat?" and "Are there any Earthquakes in Egypt as they cause Tsunamis?"....ah, thrilling. We pretty much slept the rest of the day, and I couldn't walk properly until about now.

Oh yeah, the monestary also surrounds the burning bush (below, not on fire), and a load of skeletons recovered from graves in the hills, weird....