The Sinai Peninsula

It’s been a long time since I wrote on here – things have been very busy the past couple weeks!

A couple weekends ago we took a bus out to the Sinai Peninsula and got to the foot of Mt. Sinai around 1 am. Climbing up the mountain was a rather surreal experience – I had no idea what it looked like, I was just blindly following the path by the light of our flashlights. There were tourists from all over the world and every few minutes, we heard “camel, camel” as the Bedouin men tried to convince us to take a camel to the top. In between all that though, it was so still and peaceful, with the most beautiful starry sky I’ve ever seen. We got to the top by sunrise, which was an incredible sight – rugged red mountains in every direction. Whether or not it is the same mountain that God met Moses on top of, it was an incredible experience, well worth the lack of sleep.

We then drove to the little beach town of Dahab on the Red Sea to spend the rest of the weekend relaxing. Mostly we lounged around in various seaside restaurants, overlooking the crystal clear water and pondering if we could swim to Saudi Arabia (turns out that even though it looked close, those who tried didn’t make it nearly far enough). We also got to go snorkeling in an area that is supposedly second only to the Great Barrier Reef. It was breathtakingly amazing. One of my friends’ camera can go underwater, so hopefully I can get some of her pictures and other people’s from the weekend since at that point I hadn’t gotten my new camera yet. Such a refreshing weekend!

We arrived back to the craziness of two final exams and three papers, plus enjoying our last days in Cairo before travel, and trying to spend time with our Egyptian friends here. But now its all finished and we’re busy packing and preparing for our month of travel. I’m not sure how much internet time I’ll have, but hopefully I can keep this updated at least a little bit. Our travel schedule is going to be hectic, but it goes something like this:

1 week in Turkey – Istanbul and Ankara
4 days in Syria – Damascus
2 days in Jordan – Amman and the Dead Sea
2 weeks in Israel – all over, though staying in Jerusalem

I can't wait!!