We headed into the barren mountainous, wind sculpted canyon-ed, rugged interior of the Sinai where Bedouin still wander with their camels (and pester you to take a camel ride because "the walking is hard").
Mount Sinai is the place where Moses supposedly received the Ten Commandments; we went there to climb it for the sunrise. Known locally as Gebel Musa, the 2285m mountain transcending adjacent peaks offers two routes up to 300m below the summit where they meet at a plateau called Elijah's Basin: the camel trail or the taxing (especially so in the pitch black) first 3000 of the Steps of Repentance. There are a further 750 steps (the remaining Steps of Repentance) to the Summit from here. They are steep & uneven and made of roughly hewn rock, laid by one monk as a form of penance. The climb is made in the pre-dawn hours because its cooler and in order to see the splendour of the sun rising over the neighbouring peaks of southern Sinai's high mountain region. The walk down in daylight offers sweeping views over jagged mountain chains and plummeting valleys.

At the foot of Mt Sinai in a barren valley, surrounded by high walls, lies St Catherine's Monastery, home of what is thought to be a descendant of the original Burning Bush, though there is some speculation, as the bush doesn't even smoulder these days! ;-) This 4th century UNESCO World Heritage site is named after St Catherine, the legendary martyr of Alexandria. It houses both a Mosque and Christian Church side by side. The Christian 6th Century Church of the Transfiguration contains both the Chapel of the Burning Bush, the holiest place in the Monastery and St Catherine's remains (her body was allegedly 'found' 300 years after her death on the slopes of Egypt's highest mountain peak in a perfect state of preservation). Prepare to wait as the Monastery only opens at certain times and then there is a trample of people waiting to get inside.

Intro | Museum & Pyramids | Aswan | Felucca | Luxor West Bank & Temples | Dahab | Mt Sinai & St Catherine