In Cairo I spent two days doing nothing but uploading photos and watching TV. I know this sounds lame, but I was pretty tired from the past week of sight seeing and I didn’t think I could jump right back into exploring the crazy streets of Cairo. The second night, Will (Paul’s roomate) invited me to one his friends place for dinner where we enjoyed an excellent curry dinner. Once again, Paul and Will were an awesome contact in Cairo and they could not have been more friendly to me. Especially considering that it took a few days before Paul and I figured out how it was that we were actually connected. If you guys are reading this, I really appreciate everything!

After a few days in Cairo, I took a 7 hour bus ride to St. Katherines Monestary. There, I stayed at a Bedouin camp with a few stone huts with thin mattresses on the floor….I would have slept great if it wasn’t for my roomate who snored like a T-Rex with a sinus infection. My first day I visited the Monestary which was anti-climatic to say the least. St. Katherines Monestary was erected in the place that is believed to be where the burning bush occured.

My plan was to go up Mt. Sinai in time for the sunrise, just because thats what people do. But after talking to some people about how the weather was, I started to rethink my options. Apparently, on a regular night, it gets to about negative 15 Celcius at the top. Every morning, there are about 1000 people at the top for the sunrise. Most of these people have no business walking up these stairs, in this temperature, and apparently there are always old people either collapsing, getting frostbitten, or just clogging up the traffic. By the picture I uploaded, you can see that you cant just step around people, especially in the dark when the stairs are frozen.
So….I was going to try and avoid going up in the morning, but after talking to a driver who said he would take me to Dahab at 9am for about 70 pounds cheaper than the last dude said, I was running out of options. I talked to a few more people who wanted to go to Dahab in this car, but after the Egyptian driver threw the camp cat in the fire, everyone turned against him and decided to find another driver. We all found another driver for 50 pounds a piece, which is a great price, and I got to go up the mountain at about 6am instead of leaving the camp at about 2am. Even at 6am I wore a thermal layer, 2 synthetic warm layers, two hooded sweatshirts, a hat, and an egyptian scarf around my face. On my legs I just put my pajamas under my jeans….In the three and a half hours it took me to get up and down I never had the thought of shedding one layer, and I was moving the whole time. I could only imagine how it would have been in a traffic jam at 4am at 7000 feet.

Now, I am back in Dahab and in a few minutes I am going to the dive shop to see if the Thistlegorm trip is leaving tonight. Thistlegorm is one of the most famous wreck dives in the world and one of the only wreck dives that you can do on an advanced dive license. The weather has been a little rough and the last few trips have been canceled, but I have no problem with waiting it out, saying as once I get back into Israel my expenses go up about ten times what they are in Egypt. I love Dahab.

Make sure to check my last post, “Luxor” because I posted it as the same time as this one.