It might have been almost two weeks ago, but I went to Asia. And that in and of itself makes up for delays. So my last adventure began on a Tuesday afternoon. We had Wednesday off because it was some Egyptian holiday or something and we were excused from Thursdays classes so we had a nice few days to go run wild. We were going to Sharm el Sheikh and St. Catherine. It is a a solid seven hours to Sharm and the delightful Indian family from last trip were back. Before we got into the fun part, I just have to say that the mother with the 5 month old baby is a nut. To entertain her child, she meowed at him. Loudly. We would be sitting there and all of a sudden hear "Mewwwwwwwwow, meooooooooow". All the time. By the end of the trip, people in the back were started barking when she meowed. It was really weird. Anyways, we had to go under the Suez Canal, which has a pretty cool history. In brief, it was completed in 1869 but its history dates back to the 2nd Millenium (BC). Aristotle wrote in reference to a canal here way back then, too. Construction for the 'modern' canal began in 1856 and it officially opened ten years later. Due to debts Egypt owed to Britain, the British took control of the completed Canal in 1882, and Egypt only regained control and rights to it in 1956. Okay, done with the history lesson. (I can actually say that sentence in Arabic :)
We got to Sharm around 930 and of course we went right out. Sharm is a big destination for European travelers and it is very influenced by Western ideals and it is pretty obvious in the dress of its tourists. It is very liberal and there's nightclubs everywhere. We went to a rooftop bar until they kicked us out around quarter of three. We tried to get into another club down the street, The Buddha Bar, and we managed to get in without paying cover due to our friends fantastic negotiation skills. We didn't stay long because they were closing too, so we headed back to the hotel and decided to go swimming. Who doesn't want to swim in the Red Sea at 4am? That unfortunately didn't last long because some guards kicked us out. So we went to the pool. That didn't last long either because the guards came back and told us we were going to get "chlorine poisoning". Ooookay. Thus ended the first night. The second day we just hung out at the beach and went swimming. You could lay on a beach chair and look at Saudi Arabia across the sea. We thought about swimming over but we'd probably get sniper-ed out of the water so we stuck to snorkeling. There were reefs and really cool tropical fish everywhere so it was fun. And the water was like bathwater and for all you in New England, it was around 100 degrees (still is actually :) We had a lower key night and went downtown again, but just walked around and hung out.
Out last beach day was a blast. There were 14 of us and we rented a private boat and spent the day on the water. We went to two snorkeling sites and saw some awesome fish and more reefs; our diver guide told us after we got back on the boat that there was a seven foot shark near us. Didn't see that, but we did see two sting ray. There was a camera guy who spent the day taking pictures of us doing random stuff and swimming so were were able to get those pictures at the end of the trip. It was a great time and we were out on the boat until almost 4pm so it was a good long day. Of course, pre-departure we walked into a Drinkies (what they call packies around here) and asked for two cases of beer; I'm pretty sure they had never gotten that request before. Typical Americans. Of course the only way to end a great day is to go out and have a great night. So we did. We went to a popular club called Pasha Sharm. It was four floors with no ceiling on the upper floors (perks of never getting rain or cold) and there were all the typical club things with the added bonus of having a pool and foam pit on the first floor. It was wild. There is one in NYC and/or Las Vegas too. So we paid cover but didn't really want to spend the rest of our money on the absurd drink prices so since we had time to kill, we went to another Drinkies, bought beer there and sat outside on the sidewalk for a couple of hours. I found 10 English pounds, which is about 100 Egyptian pounds so that was a fantastic perk (especially outside of a Drinkies....) It was of course another late but very memorable night. And the last night we slept until Saturday.
We had all morning to kill before we hopped on the bus again so we got a few beach hours in and lunch. I somehow managed to miss that Daylight Savings had happened here the previous week and I had somehow been living an hour behind and still making it to class on time. True genius right here. We had a three hour bus ride up to the Dahab area to the place we were staying at over night. We were in the middle of the mountains and stayed at St. Catherine's Monastery. We would be climbing Mt Sinai in the morning, since the monastery is at the base of the mountain. Mt Sinai is of course the mountain where Moses got the 10 Commandments. I just have to say that even though I know 40 is just a symbolic number, if it really took them 40 years to cross that desert, I totally believe it now. Now, climbing mountains in Egypt is an adventure. (Especially if you stay up all night and ...watch... 5 people consume 8 bottles of wine beforehand...) But Egypt is a hot country. You can't climb mountains during normal mountain hiking times aka daylight hours because it is too hot and its the desert, meaning there are no trees and no shade. So you climb Moses Mountain in the middle of the night. So 130am finds us bright eyed and ready to hike for 3 hours. The initial part isn't that bad. Of course, my flashlight dies after 5 minutes, so there is no light but other people's lights and the stars. Which I do have to say I have never ever seen stars like this in my life. It was absolutely surreal and beautiful. The camels everywhere really added to the 'scenery' of course, as we almost walked into them every other step and they obviously smell great!. The last 45 minutes or so are what really get you, because it is 750 vertical 'steps' to the top. Steps is quite a relative term, because one you cant see shit, two they are all different sizes and three there are no straight lines so they're all windy and twisty and its almost 4am. We finally made it to the top and basically collapsed for a half hour and froze our asses off. You get all hot climbing for 3 hours but then freeze at the top because its 4am in the desert and its cold and your sweaty clothes are drying. So the alternative is to wrap up in smelly camel hair blankets. Truly attractive group. But the sun started rising at 515ish and when it came up, it was gorgeous. You got your first look at the landscape (and realize why they make you climb in the dark: so you can't see down). But it was nothing but mountain ranges for as far as you could see from all angles. We sat up there until 6ish then began the trek down. We went a different way down which consisted of 3000 'steps' down, which you could see this time. You can see the Monastery from almost the beginning of the hike down and you think that it won't take long, but then realize how wrong you are. There were a few choice words running through my mind. But we made it down around 8 or 830, had time for a quick shower in the worlds dumbest shower. How the expect you to shower AND hold the shower head above you is beyond me. We took a quick tour of the monastery, which was built by Emperor Justinian I (527-567). So its old. It has some of the oldest surviving relics and icons and manuscripts dating back to the 6th century and there were no pictures allowed. (The Vatican is the only site that has more ancient manuscripts) It is also the home of the burning bush as in THE burning bush that is mentioned in the Bible. The one Moses saw. As a plant, it is the only one of its kind in Egypt. It wasn't burning when I saw it thought. Just hanging. But it was still cool. There are all sorts of scientific dispute about it, but it hey, that's nothing new. We left for Cairo soon after and after almost 10 glorious hours on a bus, we finally arrived back in time to finish some Arabic homework we all neglected and pass out so we could go to classes on Sunday.
Fast foward the week (Happy Birthday Melanie!) and we rented a falluca (a Nile boat thing) for Thursday night. It was our friend's 21st birthday so we had a little party on the Nile and saw a crocodile (floating trash is not a cool explanation for it, so were going with croc :) We had dinner and drinks on the falluca then got lost, ended up at the wrong hotel, and finally went to a stationary boat on the Nile that had a cool nightclub on it. So its been a pretty legit month thus far. I've gotten some people ask if they celebrate Halloween in Egypt. Answer is no, but Americans do. So we will be doing something for Halloween. Any costume suggestions are welcome (please keep in mind location). So I hope you are all not freezing in America and enjoy the rest of your week!
Bye habibis!
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