Kom Ombo

It had taken a while, but I was finally beginning to feel the rush of excitement that comes with traveling and seeing some of the wonders of humanity's history (even if it was only a twinge of the excitement).

I was on the cruise, sitting on the top deck quietly drinking my tea when I could see that we were approaching a large gathering of boats.  The light was beginning to fade as the boat pulled into the mooring.  Even from a distance, it was promising to see the yellow structures that seemed to protrude out of the hillside.

We had arrived at the Temple of Kom Ombo.  It was the Ptomelaic temple dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek .... or something like that anyway.

Stepping ashore, I was immediately swarmed by the touts.  The familiar screams and pleas were falling on deaf ears as I became more accustomed to the approach of "Egyptian tourism".  Walking up the stairs towards the temple, I was also greeted by the now even more familiar sight of empty tourist facilities and row after row of unused chairs in the cafes and restaurants.  The collapsed tourism industry was constantly reminded to any one who still dared to enter this country.  I couldn't help but wonder whether this collapse had added to the desperation of the touts or if that was something that was an innate part of the industry in its own pernicious way.

I continued walking up the stairs and to my relief I saw that the actual temple grounds were fenced off and would provide me with respite against the unrelenting touts.  I paid for my ticket and went inside.  Protected from the constant harassment of the touts, I was able to calmly absorb the beauty of the place.

It was indeed very beautiful as a monument to the wonders of the past.  This was what I had traveled across the world to see.  I wanted to be surrounded by the marvels of humanity's achievements.

The sun had set, but I had arrived just in time to see the last of the natural light reflected off of the buildings.  When combined with the old sulphur lights starting to kick in, there was a definite "glow" to the entire complex.  Walking through the temple in this glow felt special.  It felt like what I was doing was something rare and to be prized.

As the light of the day continued to fade, the glow of the building became more intense.  The power of the lights began to dominate the ruins more and changed the entire look of the ruins.  The yellow glow of the ruins had been replaced by the bright spots of light from the sulfur lamps .

I walked through the entire ruins a second time to give myself an opportunity to see them all with their different appearance. They now looked like some precious ornament sitting inside a display case.  The yellow glow was gone, but now there was an intense brightness to them.

As I walked closer, I could also see the vibrant colours of the hieroglyphs.  The light of the day had obscured them, but the focused light of the lamps made them shine.

I walked back to the boat feeling satisfied with what I had seen.  It was a feeling that had taken longer than I expected to come on this trip.

A cruise on the Nile

I needed to get from Aswan to Luxor.

There were some famous temples between Aswan and Luxor, so the choice of a Nile cruise suddenly became the front running option.

It sounds like a romantic notion doesn't it?  Slowly cruising the Nile River whilst sitting back in a lounge chair on a luxurious ship.  It seems like something from out of an Agathe Christie novel.  I could almost imagine the image of the sun setting as I sat on the deck with a gin and tonic, watching the countryside slowly drift by.  Yet meanwhile, somewhere within the ship there would of course be a murder and scandal unfolding!

From a practical standpoint, it also seemed the logical choice.  By taking the boat, I was choosing the option that would get me directly from Aswan to Luxor.  It would allow me to see the sights between the two locations, whilst still providing me with all of my food and accommodation for a few days.

My plan was perfect.

Nothing could possibly go wrong with this decision.

I called the travel agent and bought a ticket. Soon, I found myself in a taxi being driven to the mooring by the river.  Stepping into the gaudy lobby of the cruise ship, I was greeted with smiles and then ushered into my room.  It was clean, tidy and actually looked a bit like a hotel room, albeit one that had seen better days.  I immediately drew open the curtains and rearranged the club lounge to face the water.  I pushed the doors open to allow the breeze in, then sank into the lounge whilst looking out into the distance.  I felt calm and at ease.

It was a lovely image that was before me.  A felluca and a cruise ship on the Nile.  I couldn't have asked for a more fitting first impression.

After settling myself, I went up to the roof of the boat.  It was another beautiful scene.  The number of boats working the river had decreased during these troubled times, but that loneliness seemed to make them even more majestic as they cut their individual path through the water.

The rest of the boat seemed to contain all the amenities needed for a comfortable stay.  There was a nice bar and there was even a forward lounge to spend my evenings in.

I was pleased with my decision.  I went back onto the roof and lent on the railing to watch the sun set as the boat slowly pulled away from its mooring.

It was a satisfying feeling to know I was moving away from Aswan.  Disappointments in travel can weigh down on your mind, so fleeing such a thing by boat was an almost poetic flourish.  I didn't even look back. 

Marvel at the engineering

Being woken up at ungodly hours was becoming one of the hallmarks of my trip through Egypt.  It was not helping to endear me to the country.

At 4:00 am, my alarm sounded almost simultaneously to the phone ringing with my wake up call.  Waking up in Egypt seemed to always leave me with the same awful feeling.  My mouth would be dry and gritty.  My skin felt as though though it were covered in a fine layer of dust.  It was as though I was being shaken from death over and over again.  This wonderful feeling was compounded even further the general lack of sleep I was getting.  I dragged  myself out of bed and placed my two feet on the floor.  I could feel the sand and dirt on the bare and cold floor, another near constant in Egypt regardless of the quality of the establishment.  I showered and changed and eventually found myself in the lobby with other equally tired looking travelers.  We were each given a box of breakfast and ushered into a minibus.

Inside was a long haired South African living in Singapore.  I had never had much time for men with ponytails, but he would be one of the more tolerable people I would meet during my travels in Egypt.  Next to him was an American girl who had clearly not washed her hair for some length of time.  She was an almost stereotypical caricature, insisting that she was not a tourist but was instead a "traveler", as though the locals care to discern the difference.  She almost immediately began to detail her travels to us and explain why she was "different".  Apparently as a "traveler", she wasn't interested in visiting the tourist sites and she was instead more interested in experiencing things like dancing, music and getting to know the locals.  I listed quietly with a smile as I began to recollect how many times I had heard someone tell me an almost identical story about how they were so unique.  Instead of challenging her, I decided that sleep was the better option.  I pulled my head warmer over my eyes and let the movement of the minibus send me into my nap.

I woke from my semi-conscious dozing to find the minibus slowing.  I opened the box I had been given by the hotel and started to eat some of my breakfast.  The American girl looked over at my hungrily and then declared loudly how hungry she was.  She had immediately eaten the entire box the moment she had gotten on the minibus and now had nothing left.  I gave her some of my bread and cheese, wondering how it was possible that so many people who seemed to plan so little in their lives managed to continue surviving.  The minibus slowed further as the other cars and buses we were traveling with began to also slow.  It had been comforting to know that we had been traveling in an armed convoy and that we had arrived safely without being shot at.  We pulled into the enormous carpark that had been clearly designed for many times the number of visitors than were present that day (yet again another reminder of the parlous state of the Egyptian tourism industry).

I walked through the manicured little garden and paid for my ticket, then began to follow the path with all the other tourists.  The South African and I had struck up a conversation and were both sharing our war stories of the horrific treatment we had both received to date from the people working in the Egyptian tourism industry.  It was becoming very apparent that this was a common experience.  We kept talking and as we turned a corner, it appeared.

Abu Simbel.

The two amazing Abu Simbel temples were built by the great Ramses II to both impress and terrify the Nubians to the south.  They were certainly impressive.  The sheer size of them alone made them impressive.  Looking up at the faces on the statues, there was a strange expression on each of them, an almost smile that seemed to convey a smug satisfaction.  Thinking about it more, I'd probably have the same smug satisfaction on my face as well if I had an army of slaves making gigantic statues of me.

We walked inside and I was finally greeted by the brightly coloured hieroglyphs that I had waited so long to see.  Bathed in the yellow glow of the electric lights, the images of war and conquest seemed like something out of an old adventure movie.  There was one large image of Ramses II triumphantly riding his war chariot that I was particularly drawn to in all its bragging glory.  The rooms inside the temples were beautiful, far more intricate and detailed than I expected.  By some stroke of good fortune, we had managed to walk in during a major lull.  Instead of jostling with crowds within the temple, we were able to casually wander in and out of the chambers, considering the beauty at our own pace.

The crowds began to flock in soon enough though.  Photography was not permitted inside the temples, but that didn't stop any of the tourists and the temples were quickly lit up with the intermittent flashes of the cameras.  The guards would protest in a dramatic manner, but be quickly silenced with some Egyptian pounds stuffed into their hands.  There wasn't even any attempt at making the transactions clandestine.  I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about this.  I understood that the interiors of the temples needed to be protected and this use of the flash would not be helping with preserving the colours.  However, it was also becoming clear to me that many of the guards and attendants in these tourist locations were painfully underpaid and this was one of the ways they were able to supplement their meager wages.  My mind continued debating this issue back and forth until I saw a group of middle aged European women wander up to the painted hieroglyphs and begin stroking them with their palms and fingers.  One of the women even started to scratch the paint with her fingers just to "test" it, either completely oblivious or ambivalent to the damage she was doing.  The guard standing watch looked on and didn't say a word.

I walked outside and towards the Nile.

One of the most impressive facts about the temples at Abu Simbel is that they have been relocated.  Originally, the temples actually sat several hundred metres down the hill.  However, the construction of the Aswan High Dam meant that they were going to be inundated by the rising waters.  Looking into the water, I could appreciate the work that was involved in moving these temples.  It had taken an army of archaeologists to take them apart piece by piece and reassemble them again in their current location.

Turning back and looking at the temples again, I was convinced that much of the awe I had was not for the buildings themselves, but the incredible engineering feat that had occurred to move them.

A big piece of rock

Well this is boring.

Egypt was not living up to the tourist hype.

After catching the ferry back from Elephantine Island, I flagged a taxi and headed up towards the unfinished obelisk.

This was apparently one of the main attractions of Aswan.  Had it been completed, it would have been the biggest obelisk in Egypt.  Unfortunately for the Egyptians, a flaw was revealed in the stone during its construction and so it remained unfinished.

I arrived at the site of this abandoned quarry, I paid my admission and I walked in towards the obelisk.

The heat was intense and its reflection off the rock below made it even more oppressive.  I slipped on my sunglasses, but that was still largely ineffective as the glare made its way up underneath the lenses.

 A brief walk later and I was standing in front of the object of my endeavours.  I was surrounded by a few small tour groups who were busily posing and taking their photos.

All for this big piece of rock.

I walked around it.  I took the obligatory photos and I tried to be interested in what it was.

Once again, there was nothing.

My lack of interest in Egyptian antiquity was becoming very difficult to overcome.  Without this underlying interest, it was not possible for me to build the necessary excitement over something like this unfinished obelisk.  I was sure that there was more of a story behind its existence, but I didn't really care.

For me, this was just an unfinished piece of rock in an abandoned quarry.

Nubian villages and my continued isolation

The solitude I was experiencing in Egypt was starting to become a touch weird.

Peace and quiet can be nice, but the complete lack of travelers anywhere was making me feel incredibly isolated.

After my disappointing walk through the Egyptian ruins on Elephantine Island, I decided that I should do some walking into some more populated areas.  To the North of the ruins were the Nubian villages where some of the locals lived.

Wandering through the streets, I was still feeling isolated.

It was as though the villagers had been warned that I would be coming and had fled.  So instead of walking through deserted ruins or a deserted river promenade, I now found myself walking through deserted farms and villages.

After getting lost not once, but twice in the maze of side streets, I arrived at the Nubian house.  This was a private museum made by one of the locals to preserve and display the traditional Nubian way of living to outsiders and traveler such as myself.

Walking through this house silently, with its near kitsch level of colours and adornments, felt like a form of time travel.  I moved from living rooms and bedrooms that had either been never used or unused for years that were covered in a fine layer of dust and sand and then through to a menagerie of stuffed animals.

The house wanted to portray the life of the Nubians in the area, but all I could feel was a sense of death and decay.  The preservation felt more akin to something scientific and so what was left sterile and cold.  I couldn't help but think back to my childhood days when I would visit my father in his laboratory.  There was a similar silence and there was a similar smell.

I kept climbing the stairs to escape the enclosed atmosphere of the house.  On the roof, I could feel the cool breeze and the warm sun.  Looking out at the view the roof afforded, I could see the fields and the green of the trees.  I felt immediately better.  Even on the roof, I was surrounded by signs of age and decay, with broken furniture and antiquated pamphlets stream everywhere.  It didn't bother me as much as I was able to compartmentalise that and focus on the movement of the natural world around me.

It was a confronting experience to see the Nubian house and the Nubian village.  I don't know if it was positive.  This entire journey across the Nile to Elephantine Island had been one of isolation and solitude that had left me with uncomfortable images of death, decay and neglect.

The museum is closed

I was feeling good after my first evening in Aswan.  The souq had allayed my initial fears of Aswan and given a me a good insight into life in an Egyptian city.

The next morning, I woke up early and began walking towards the Nile.  To say those words felt strange.  I was going towards "the Nile".  The famous river of so much history and so many stories.  I was now just one of many travelers through the centuries who had come to Egypt and looked at the Nile with the same feelings of awe and curiosity.  Whenever I have been at historically significant locations such as this, I have always had a feeling of being connected with the past.  It feels as though I am now becoming part of a historical chain of events that is far greater than myself.

I reached the corniche and stared out at the fast moving waters of the Nile.  It was a beautiful day and there couldn't have been a more picturesque scene with the feluccas moored by the banks.

I walked towards the river and braced myself for a rush of touts.

It never came.

I was approached by a couple of  touts, but they seemed to lack enthusiasm.  One of them later sat down next to me with no intent of making a sale and began to have a casual chat.  He told me that the tourists were gone and that most of the touts had given up.  Looking down the length of the corniche, I could see the truth in his words.  To the left was the river and to the right was a row of hotels and yet there were almost no tourists to be seen.

I kept walking down the bank of the river until I found the ferry.  I hopped on, put my pound into the box in the middle of boat and took my seat.  The ferry's motor made a horrible noise and began moving me towards Elephantine Island in the middle of the river.

This was going to be my first experience with Egypt's ancient history.  There was a large museum and collection of ruins to the South of island.  This seemed like the perfect place for me to start my exploration of Egypt's history.  I walked up the hill towards the museum, which was inside an old house.  I reached the door and was told that it was closed.  I wasn't completely surprised, but consoled myself with the fact that there were still the very substantial ruins to be explored.

The ruins were indeed substantial and were once again completely deserted.

I was able to see an actual Nilometre that was used by the Egyptians to measure the height of the Nile floods.

I was able to stand on top of the old temple.

I was able to climb to a high point and look out across the expanse of the ruins.

Walking around the ruins, I was coming to a horrifying realisation .... I didn't care.

Looking at these relics to the ancient Egyptian world, I was experiencing no thrill of excitement or sense of wonder.  Staring at the ruins, I tried to muster some enthusiasm for what I was seeing, but I could feel nothing.  It just didn't interest me.  I wasn't sure whether this was because I had seen too much or if it was the result of a general lack of interest in ancient Egypt.

Whatever the reason, this was a bit of a concern as I still had another three weeks in Egypt.

Aswan

Arriving in Aswan in the evening, I was once again confronted by a scrum of taxi drivers trying to convince me to pay an exorbitant price to the drive into the city.  At this early stage in my trip, it was already becoming tiring.  I couldn't understand why there wasn't a bus or a shuttle or some other form of transport to get me into the city.  Instead, I had to deal with being captive to the lies and deceit of the Egyptian tourism industry.

"It will cost £150!" declared one driver.

I looked at the group without a smile called him a liar.  He seemed taken aback by my curt response, but I didn't really care.

"Friend, please, Aswan is very far."

Aswan was not very far.  This was the next lie I was being given.  I told the driver exactly how far Aswan was and asked him whether he thought it was really that far.  I received no response.

This idiotic back and forth continued for the next twenty minutes until I was finally able to get them to £60.  I was still being horrifically overcharged, but I was tired and was completely through with having to speak to these drivers any further.  I couldn't imagine why tourists so often felt abused and mistreated in this country?

Arriving in Aswan, my hopes of finding a Nubian paradise were quickly dashed.  What I found was a near empty tourist town.

My search for a hostel in Aswan had been unsuccessful and so I had settled on the Keylany Hotel.  My hotel room was plain but clean.  It was strangely overpriced considering the complete lack of any amenities or assistance from the staff.  The advertised "pool" (which I was never going to use) was actually a raised suburban swimming pool sitting precariously on the roof.  I peered over the side and saw suspiciously coloured water.

My hopes for Aswan weren't looking amazing at this time of night.

I pulled on my jacket and I walked out of the hotel.  I looked down the street and saw some bright lights and so headed towards it.

I found a true gem!

It was a working souq.  An enormous working souq at that, several kilometres long.

This was clearly the heart of Aswan.  It was a very nice heart as well.  My step quickened with excitement as I walked from store to store and down each of the little alleys.  There was an array of little shops selling everything from food to fabrics to the most stereotypical of tourist trinkets.  In the middle of the souq, there was even a large fruit and vegetable market in the middle of the souq where families were doing their shopping.  I kept walking the length of the souq and eventually found myself a small restaurant at the end.  I ordered a roasted chicken, rice and a bowl of malukhiya (spinach soup).  The food was warm and satisfying.  The malukhiya in particular tasted intensely of its vegetable base and made me feel healthy again.  I ate it quietly and happily, listening to the bustle of the souq behind me.

A silent airport

Terminal 3 of Cairo Airport is an ultra modern and sleek facility that stands in sharp contrast to much of Egypt.  Even looking out of its large windows, you can see how it stands separate from older city of Cairo.  This structure was constructed largely be Egypt's port of welcome to the foreign world and to facilitate the enormous number of domestic flights ferrying tourists around Egypt.

This terminal of Cairo Airport is largely deserted.

It is a very real example of the impact of the social and political turmoil on the tourism industry in this country.

At first, I enjoyed the quiet of the airport.  I am more used to always being in airports that have been completely full of people, so I was able to behave like a child as I ran through the empty hall riding up and down the travelators.

After my 8th or 9th lap of the terminal, I started to get bored.  The complete emptiness of the terminal was now beginning to become a bit creepy.  When the time came for my flight, I went quickly to the departure gate which was itself full of people.  Where these people could have been hiding for the last few hours was completely beyond me.

A very different Sharm

I had been in Sharm El Shaikh for a few days.  It had not given me what I wanted.

I had organised a trip to Egypt because I wanted to reconnect with the Middle East and instead I had been confronted by a tacky and touristy resort town.  I had made a clear mistake in my choice of location.

Drastic measures were needed and so I hired a driver and a guide, which was something I very rarely do.  I generally prefer to explore by myself, but this hadn't worked out.  When they arrived, they were shocked at my request.  I asked them to take me to the real Sharm El Shaikh.  I asked them to take me to where they lived, to the places that they frequented.

They seemed happy enough to oblige.

Unsurprisingly, they immediately took me to the central mosque.  It was the main place of worship for the Egyptian workers in Sharm and also a centre for their social life. 

It was beautiful.  A modern mosque built in a traditional style, this was the first time I had be close to an Egyptian style mosque.  The guide explained to me that as the mosque was built in the Egyptian tradition, it had very high minarets.  I had arrived after the mosque had closed, but wandering the grounds was still peaceful and a very welcome escape from the noise of the main strip of Sharm.

Our next stop was the local Coptic Christian cathedral.

This was something I had not expected at all.

The outside of the cathedral reminded me of some of those that I had seen when I was in Goa.  The inside of the cathedral was adorned with a level of detail and colour that I hadn't seen since I was in Europe.  There were brightly coloured frescoes and enormous images of scenes from the bible were enormous in their proportions.  What made this all the more impressive was the fact that this was truly a working church.  This wasn't just a monument to fading beliefs and lost passions as is the case for most of the large churches in Europe, this was still the everyday congregation point for the local Coptic Christians in the area.  Outside, there were large groups of families enjoying their evening.  There was even a communal dining area and kitchen for shared meals and special occasions.

As I wandered around the grounds of the Church, I asked my guide what the relationship between the Muslim and Christian communities was like in Sharm.  It probably wasn't the most tactful question to ask, but I was curious.  He smiled and said that it was fine.  He then laughed when he told me about how many Coptic Christian friends he had and how during Ramadan, the very church we were standing in would organise fast breaking dinners for them!  It's amazing how distant the realities can be from what we so often see portrayed in the media.  Undoubtedly there are tensions in some areas, but for the most part these people were neighbours and friends.

The talk of food made me hungry.

My guide suggested a local restaurant and I was more than happy with this.

Sitting down outside of what was clearly a locals only food strip, I started feeling good about my trip again.  My guide made some gestures and we soon had two large and steaming bowls of kushori in front of us.  I had a lot about this amalgam of Egyptian and Italian cultures, but it was still surprising to see it front of me.  The hot macaroni, chick peas and rice were deliciously offset by the fried onions and tomato sauce.  However, it was clear that this was a dish that had its origins in poverty stricken times.  I could see this carbohydrate rich meal being the sole source of energy for workers during some harder times (or even in more contemporary times).  It didn't make it any less tasty though and I soon finished my bowl.

After dinner, the guide took us over to a local cafe.

My love of sitting and contemplating life in cafes wasn't something I had discussed with the guide, so he was either mind reader or a man after my own heart.

This cafe was exactly what I had been looking for when I dreamed of being in the Middle East again.  Surrounded by trees and bathed in the light of the flickering electric light bulbs, it reminded me of my days drinking mint tea in Aqaba.

Like all the true Middle Eastern cafes, it was a men only affair.  Gathered at tables, old men drank mint tea, smoked shisha and played backgammon.  The air was filled with smoke and in the background the radio played an old arabic song.

I sank into my chair and began to feel comfortable.  A backgammon set was brought out and a glass of sweet mint tea.

I finally felt like I was back in the Middle East.

St Katherine's Monestary

I was tired as I started the descent down the mountain.

The combination of physical exertion, a lack of sleep and my as yet unresolved jet lag were all conspiring to crush me.  It wasn't over though.  I still needed to get back to the start.

Walking down the mountain was far easier than the walk up to the top.  It gave me a fantastic perspective of what I had done during the night.

And what I had done during the night was to nearly kill myself on multiple occasions.

I was completely astounded by just how dangerous some of the paths I had taken had been.  They were rocky, they were steep and they often dropped off on either side.  Walking up the mountain in the middle of the night, you are completely unaware of this danger.  Instead, the darkness of the night had left me in a sweet bliss, aware only of the ground ahead of me one step at a time.

I was trying to absorb as much of what was around me.  The sheer enormity of my surroundings was quite incredible and I felt a slight rush of insignificance being in the middle of it.  Every rock seemed to grow out of the mountain side, and each crevice seemed to be a reflection of the deep scars in the sides of the hill.  Nothing was by itself unique, as it was constantly magnified and repeated over and over again.

The sun began to rise further and the desert began to show its other face.  The heat began a slow creep up that quickly accelerated.

I quickened my pace (with the near disastrous results of slips and close calls) and made it to the bottom of the mountain.  Now I was ready for the final leg of this trip.  I was going to go into St Katherine's monastery and I was going to see the famous (alleged) burning bush of Moses.

At least I thought I was.

Instead, I was accosted by the smiling Yasser.  He brought a small group of us to the front of the monastery and sat us in front, tormenting and tempting us with our goal being just out of reach.  Yasser then decided to tell us bible stories.  I could understand the need to properly inform the tourists of the significance of our surroundings, but I was less than impressed by his need to tell us the stories in minute detail and to tell them incorrectly.  Every moment I felt that Yasser was close to his conclusion, he would ramble on.  He then began to describe in detail the inside of the monastery, yet would not let us go in.

Eventually I had enough.  I stood up and I walked in.  As I began walking in, he screamed out that I would only have 15 minutes inside as our bus was waiting for us.  This was too much.  I turned around with a look of pure loathing, realising that he had sat us in front of the monastery for 45 minutes telling us incorrect bible stories in order to reduce our time inside the monastery (and for what reason, I will never know).  He responded with an idiotic grin.

Once inside, I raced.  I went to see as many of the things that I had wanted to see as quickly as possible.  There was no lingering possible.  There was no time to stand in front of the sights and to embrace the history of the locale.  This was a tour that was about efficiency.

I ran quickly to the burning bush.  It was nice enough, but I was fairly certain it was just a bush and had nothing to do with the actual burning bush that Moses had once stood before.

It was a nice monastery.  Even at my rapid pace around the courtyard, it was very clear to me that this lonely outpost in the middle of the desert would have been an incredible place for contemplation and reflection.  The silence of the surroundings and starkness of the desert would have sharpened the mind, forcing one to contemplate nothing but the thoughts in your own head.

I left the monastery reluctantly.  However, I comforted myself knowing that there would be some breakfast in the monastery kitchens before we boarded the bus for the journey back to Sharm El Shaikh.

Once again, I had been fooled by Yasser though.  He looked at our group with his increasingly tiresome grin and told us that the monastery had run out of breakfast.  Apparently we had taken too long.  I wonder what could have delayed us for 45 minutes?  He had probably pocketed the money.

Instead, Yasser took us out to a decrepit hotel on the outskirts of town.  It was a sad and dusty hotel that looked as though it had been half finished and then abandoned, only to have been reclaimed by squatters who decided to make an attempt at the hotel business.  There I ate my stale bread and drank my lukewarm tea and hoped that the rumbling in my stomach wasn't the beginnings of a food poisoning from the boiled egg I had decided to chance my luck on.

Once we had all finished, we were once again made to wait as Yasser was nowhere to be found.

I really hate you Yasser.  Wherever you are.

Mount Sinai

I set my alarm for 9:30 o'clock.

Not 9:30 o'clock am.  I set it for 9:30 o'clock pm.

I glanced at my watch.  It was only 5:00 pm.  It was time to go to sleep.  I switched off CNN and tried to get as much sleep as I could.

After a disturbed sleep (was it really sleep?) I was woken by the drone of the alarm.  Woken makes it seem so definitive.  What actually happened was that I moved from my state of semi-consciousness into one of waking grouchiness.  All my attempts to adjust to the new time zone were being destroyed by these bizarre and self imposed sleeping patterns.

I put on my thermals, grabbed my beanie and my bag and slowly walked to the hotel lobby.  Waiting for me was an overly cheerful Egyptian man named Yasser who claimed to be Bedouin (he was clearly not Bedouin) who would be taking me to a mountain.  I got into the back of the van and promptly fell back asleep.

When I woke up, I was being bundled out of the van by Yasser, not at our destination, but at a gift shop as you would expect.  Even by tourist shop standards, there was a particularly high level of tackiness in this store that was compounded by the fact that they were trying to hawk "genuine" religious icons.  I decided against buying anything and walked back to the van.

Within half an hour, we were dropped off at our destination, the base of Mount Sinai, or "Moses Mountain" as Yasser kept calling it (I would grow to despise Yasser before the end of this trip).

Many (including Yasser) had told me that it wouldn't be cold and that all I would need would be a shirt and long pants.  These people were all either lying or completely ignorant of their professional as disseminators of information about the tourist destinations of their region.  It was cold.  It was cold enough for me to need my thermals and other warm weather gear.  Our small group was led up a path and past a monastery at which point we were given inadequate torches between groups of three and told to follow an actual Bedouin man to the top of the mountain.  Ignoring Yasser's insistence that the barely visible glow from the half charged torches would be enough, I took out my own 9 LED torch and cast a usable beam of light in front of the group.

Following in the footsteps of our Bedouin guide, we were all soon walking up the rocky path towards the numerous small lights in the distance.  As the lights became brighter, it was became clear that they were actually little kiosks that had been set up by the Bedouins in the area to act as rest stops for all the traveling hoards of tourists tramping up this mountain.  These were the aim of our guide as he dashed immediately inside seeking out the warmth of a warm cup of tea.

Inspired by my guide, I also decided that these rest stops were the perfect time to rest my feet and drink some tea.  There was a definite charm to each of these kiosks and after the entire walk was done, I came to the conclusion that it was actually the opportunity of sitting inside these simple rock made buildings decorated with Bedouin carpets and mats that had been the experience I enjoyed the most.

The walk up the mountain wasn't overly strenuous or difficult.  However, the combination of the pitch black, the cold and the lack of sleep turned it into something more complicated than it should have been.  This still wasn't something that could only be done by the fittest and the strongest though as I saw (and overtook) dozens of groups that included both children and the elderly.  Apparently, it should take between 2.5 and 3 hours to ascend to the top of Mount Sinai, but this is not taking into account the cold, the sleepiness, the inability to see or the stops at the kiosks (which had become a requirement for me).  One by one, people around me in my group gave up and paid the camel driver touts to take them the rest of the way.  I stubbornly refused and continued to push on by foot.

Eventually, after a few more stops at a few more Bedouin kiosks, we began to reach the top of the mountain.  The ascent began to steepen and incredibly the track became even more narrow.  The tourists walking up the mountain side by side were forced into single file to carefully negotiate the steps.

Finally, after hours of walking I was at the top of the mountain.

Gathered around the old buildings were dozens of tourists all waiting for the sunrise.  Talking to my brother and other friends who had done the trip in the past, I had been told that there were hundreds of tourists who used to make this trek to gather for sunrise.  Tourism was clearly not what it had once been in Egypt.  I couldn't complain too much though as it meant I had a spot front and centre for the sunrise.

As is always the case, standing still made me feel progressively more cold after the exertion.  I looked around at the gathered groups who were clearly excited about the prospect of the sunrise but I shared little of their enthusiasm.  Instead, all I could think about was where my next cup of tea would be coming from.

Finally, after what felt like an age, the lights in the sky began to change and there appeared that surreal period between night and day as the glow of yellow began to consume the darkened blue.

It was undeniably beautiful and I found it quite quite amazing to see the light revealing the path that I had taken during the night to get to that peak.  I started thinking back to the days when I had climbed to the top of the fortress in Palmyra with Guy all those years ago.  In that situation, we had also fought off the cold and sleepiness in order to reach the top of the fortress to see the sun rise.  It was a nostalgic feeling to be once again in the Middle East watching the sun rise, but like our experience in Syria, I was definitely thinking that I would have preferred the sleep to seeing the sunrise.  The experience just isn't worth the tiring exertions that accompany it.

After the sun was up, people began their slow ascent down.

I headed towards the first kiosk I could see to get my much needed cup of scaldingly hot tea.

Walking down the mountain, now in the brightness of day, I was able to appreciate the magnitude of my surroundings.

I think I would have preferred seeing this all in the light of day the first time.