This weekend we visited Mt. Sinai and Dahab, Egypt! We traveled 7 hours over the Sinai desert to arrive at Mt. Sinai by 2 AM. All I can say about the desert of the Sinai is that I can understand why it was a curse for the Israelites to live there. 40 years of wandering there would be quite a punishment. We arrived in time to start the trek up the mountain with enough time to reach the top by sunrise. Side note: No one really knows for certain which mountain Moses’ received the Ten Commandments on. This mountain is proclaimed to be the Mt. Sinai because it is the most likely mountain and historians have pegged this as the best possible answer to that geographical question.
We begin our journey and Bedouin tribesman are constantly offering camels for the ride up (for a nice sum of money of course). At first it is a nice walking trail but as we get into the mountain range and start going up the side of the mountain it begins to get to be a bit of a nice, little hike. It took us 3 hours to get to the top, but it felt great to do some physical exertion and not breath the polluted Cairo air for a change. The stars were beautiful and the mountains were breathtaking in the bright moonlight that God offered us.
At the top we find a good place to sit to watch the sunrise. It is quite cold and windy at the summit, which we were prepared for. As one can imagine, the sunrise was astounding and it was one of the most peaceful, quiet, and surreal things I have ever seen. It was one of those moments that I thought, “How can anyone doubt God’s existence?” Its almost a disgrace to post a picture to represent what I saw, but I guess I have to!
We visited the monastery at the bottom of the mountain, where the “burning bush” supposedly is. The bush was just a normal, living bush, which I didn’t even deem picture worthy. There are cooler ways to project a burning bush fabrication, I believe.
Then we go to Dahab on the Red Sea coast, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. It is a small beach town, that is overshadowed by Sharm al-Sheik, the major resort city about 40 miles away that is much more crowded and popular (and where President Hosni Mubarak spends most of his time). The highlight of the 3 days we spent in Dahab is easily snorkeling at the “Blue Hole”. The “Blue Hole” has been named the #2 best snorkeling and diving spot in the world (behind Australia’s Great Barrier Reef). I had never snorkeled before so this was an especially great experience. The rest of the time was spent hanging out by the Red Sea, eating at interesting Egyptian restaurants and playing cards with each other.
Couple of notes on the Red Sea:
1. It is the Bluest, Clearest water you will ever see.
2. It has a high salt content and is effortless to float in.
Today, we had Hasam Baghet speak to us (just the 30 MESP students) about Human Rights. It is a pretty amazing thing that I got to see him in such a small arena. He is an extremely respected lawyer who runs an NGO specializing in challenging laws restricting human rights. He has won several high profile cases that overturn discriminatory laws, which is no small feat considering that Egypt is an autocratic, military state run by a dictator and corrupt government. He is only 30 and appears regularly on political talk shows and has been quoted in a lot of the reading that we have done so far on the social conditions in Egypt. So hearing him in such a small environment was pretty cool. He had some mind-blowing things to say about conditions in Egypt, what is being done about it, the dangers of standing against the government, the U.S role in Egypt and its development. He is a hot commodity in the burgeoning global human rights arena, so it was quite inspiring to hear him speak.
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