I was woken up at 12.30 am, yes thats 30 minutes after midnight, as James had mis-set his phone alarm. I did stay in bed until 1.15 when my phone went off, but amazingly didn't fall back asleep as you would expect to at that hour. Anyway at 1.30 it was time to set off so we left the hotel and drove the short distance to the base of the mountain. Mt Sinai is the target of our climb as we aim to follow in the footsteps of Moses.
It was pitch black, but it did mean that we had a great view of the stars. Orion in particular looked amazing, far better than it does in the light polluted cities I normally inhabit. Anyway although it was dark, we all had our torches, so it was ok. More importantly we were sharing the mountain with 100s of others, so there was a torch procession going up the mountain.
There are two ways up the mountain, the camel trail which is an 8km track which goes up fairly evenly, and the stairs of Moses, which are 3750 steps up the side of the mountain. Either way the last 750 steps have to be done. I wanted to go up the steps (and had spent a lot of time training in the gym for steps), but our guide wouldn't split us and the rest of the group wanted to walk up. The only hard part about the trail is avoiding the camels, which a lot of the fat tourists use to get up. It takes about 2 hours to get up the trail to the base of the steps, and then another 30 minutes or so to get up the stairs.
However just before we got to the base of the stairs, Toby slipped, and sprained his ankle. This, and the fact that you can't really overtake the slow fat tourists on the steps (they had got ahead of us by using camels, camels are cheating) did slow us down slightly but we still had half anhour to shelter and drink some hot drinks in a coffe shop at the top. We had brought chocolates and coke all the way up with us, and you could get it at the top.
Anyway with the emrgency first aid applied to Toby's ankle w got to the top, and still quite ahead of most of the crowds, so our guide got us to a really good position to view sunrise. Of course it turns out that a lot of the people weren't there for the sunrise. In fact there was a lot of praying going on at the top of the mountain, and I did for second wonderwhat all that was about. So focussed were we about getting up for sunrise, I sort of forgot that everyone else was there because it is a holy mountain. It also explained why there were so many older people there. I didn't expect to be one of the yougest going up.
We had arrived at our viewing ledge about 45miutes before sunrise which was scheduled for 5.45. It was a bit chilly in the wind. The guides had been insisting that we got blankets and so on, but I was happy enough in my fleece. To be honest I don't think it was any colder than it would have been at home at the same time of year. Might feel cold to the loals but not to an Irish guy. Still I did look out of place without a blanket.
The sun duly rose, after about 20 photos, and then it was time to go down. Again because of the volume of people on the mountain, and Tobys ankle, it was fairly slow going. As we went down and the sun rose,it got hotter and hotter, until it must have been 25 degrees when we got back to base camp. It was only about 700 metres below the summit, but it did make a difference to the temperature. It was about 8.45 when we got down and then it was back to the hotel for a well deserved breakfast and a shower. After that we checked out and were on our way to our nice bech resort for a rest.
But first it was back to the base of the mountain and to the monestary there which is the site of the burnin bush where God supposedly spoke to Moses. I managed to commit one of those traveller sins I hate seeing others commit. As I had forgotten we were going back to the monestary, I had changed into shorts for the beach. As such I wasn't going to be allowed in unless I covered my knees, so I had to put on a sheet as a skirt. We saw the burning bush, it wasn't on fire, and a lot of greek iconography, but didn't see all the good stuff, as the queue was too long and the sun too hot (the queue was outside).
After the monestary closed at midday, and we picked Toby back up (he was recuperating from his trip - to the local hospital which was not a pleasant trip at all) and we headed to the coastal resort of Dahab. We got there about 3, but since we had been up since 1 we really just spent the rest of the day relaxing, drinking (hooray we could get drink again) and having a really nice meal in a nice sea front restaurat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt_Sinai
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