Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
EGYPT 2 - SINAI AND THE SUEZ CANAL
'Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.'
T. Roosevelt
13th April
We left for Sinai today and headed east to Suez on a good tarmac road, taking the tunnel under the Suez Canal. The Mediterranean looked very blue as we followed the road that hugged the western coast of Sinai. As we turned inland for the Monastery of Saint Katherine the landscape became remote and rugged, the colours of the huge, weathered mountains intensified by the setting sun and the evening sky began to look very stormy. It was bitterly cold and we put the heater on.
The palms and tamarisk trees at the oasis of Wadi Feiran, spread some way along the valley before we reached the turning for the monastery that we plan to visit tomorrow. We headed for the village to find a room, as it was now dark and freezing cold. We stopped outside the new and very attractive El Wady El Mouquduss Hotel, where we were given a really nice room, including breakfast for 160 Egyptian pounds (about £15) and dinner would be another 30 pounds (£3) each. We really couldn't complain about that and our room also had two major requirements, heating and hot water! The manager told us that they had snow, hail stones and rain last night and again this morning and at 1500 metres, the nights got very cold.
14th April
Today the sky was a clear, deep blue with bright sunshine and mountains, we discovered, towering around us.
We drove to the monastery, which was open between 9 a.m. and 12 noon but there was already a huge crowd of tourists waiting to enter through a small door, camels were lined up to give rides and Bedouin stalls sold various souvenirs. It was difficult to agree with Lonely Planet's description of the monastery as being 'set amid a landscape that resembles a faded biblical print.' Before the tourist invasion, I'm sure it did, tucked at the bottom of towering mountains on three sides and an open valley on the fourth.
Mount Sinai, which the Bedouin call Jebel Musa (Mount Moses), a craggy and sheer massif of grey and red granite, rose behind the monastery, its loftiest peak 2285 metres above sea level, where Moses was said to have received The Ten Commandments. Mount Sinai also overlooked the valley where Moses heard the Lord speaking to him from a burning bush.
Built of granite, Saint Katherine had its origins dating back to 337AD, when the Byzantine Empress Helena ordered a chapel to be built around the Burning Bush, which was already a site for pilgrims. Inside the walls of the monastery, this chapel had been dedicated to Saint Katherine, the legendary martyr who was tortured on a spiked wheel, (hence the words 'Catherine Wheels') and then beheaded on the orders of Emperor Maxentius for her Christianity. Her remains, it was said, were transported to Sinai by angels and then found by priests during the 9th/10th century on a nearby mountain, now called Mount Katherine (Jebel Katerina), Egypt's highest peak at 2642 metres.
We decided to leave entering the monastery as it was so crowded and chose to climb Mount Sinai instead. After hiking about a third of the way up, a Bedouin appeared with his camel and we decided it would be fun to take it in turns riding the camel to the beginning of the final, steep ascent. There we stopped at one of the many little huts on the route where sweet, Arabic tea was brewed, to provide energy for the last stretch that had to be done on foot. This last, steep climb was followed by 750 steps, which took you to the top. There, a little chapel had been built, near to the cave where God was said to have sheltered Moses. A little snow still lay in shadowed pockets and the views of rugged peaks and winding valleys far below, were of course, spectacular. Such silence and we were the only ones there! We could see Mount Katherine clearly, snow also on its peak.
Descending the steps, we detoured to Elija's Hollow. It was there that Elijah was said to have heard God's voice and was fed by ravens as he hid from Jezebel. Another little hut had been built, next to a 500 year old Cypress tree and close to a deep well. Ahmed served us up hot tea again and whilst we relaxed, he sat and played an old, stringed instrument made from wire, wood and goatskin.
We decided to go back down the mountain by the 3000 Steps of Repentance, carved out long ago by a monk but first we explored a path through the rocks that Ahmed told us would bring us to some pools of underground water, plants and trees and provide an excellent view of the monastery far below.
The 3000 steps were without a break and proved harder than the climb up. They were sometimes very steep and slippery, it was hard work on the leg muscles and knees and not for the faint hearted!
The camels were all returning home again as we finally reached the bottom, roaring and complaining when being asked to couch. Late afternoon shadows had reached the monastery and the wind was becoming cold again.
We took another room for the night at the El Mouquduss Hotel but first had to make sure that Moby was also safe for the night in the parking area. The 'guard' suddenly appeared however, tapping on our window and using hand signals to show that he was there to look after our vehicle. To prove his point he pulled an official looking, black, peaked cap from a carrier bag that he had been holding, put it on, tapped the top and gave us a beaming, reassuring smile! What could we say!
15th - 20th April
We took the road east across to the Gulf of Aquaba, calling at Dahab on the coast, a very attractive town with many white, Moorish-style hotels, palm-lined roads and trendy, boutique-type shops for the many tourists who flock there for the snorkelling, diving and wind surfing.
We continued further up the coast however, to Basata for camping, 23 kilometres north of Nuweiba. A much quieter place, tucked in a bay and sheltered by hills and dramatic, granite mountains, facing turquoise waters and coral beds. We camped on the white sand, looking across the Gulf to a long range of mountains, belonging to Saudia Arabia and Jordan. Basata had been very carefully thought out by Egytptian Sherif El-Ghamrawy and his German wife and besides being ecologically friendly, the whole atmosphere was one to relax in. Their menu alternated between fresh fish and vegetarian dishes, they baked their own bread and pizzas, heated water using solar panels and recycled all the rubbish. Sherif worked alongside the local Bedouin, providing them with jobs and including their children in his school that he had built. Certainly a place to be recommended and Sherif was a very unique man!
My birthday was spent relaxing, the calm before the storm, as the next day in the middle of the afternoon, a very strong wind blew up and in no time, clouds of stinging sand were being swept along the beach. It was impossible later to cook and we hadn't put our names down for a meal that night. The wind whipped open my diary, which I had mistakenly left on the Land Rover and loose sheets of paper were swirled away across the beach in the dark. I discovered that I had lost 5 sheets of A4 writing on Ethiopia that I had just completed for our website and was quite distraught at the thought of having to rewrite them. In my panic to run after the papers and to hunt along the beach in the dark, I forgot to turn off our outside water tap where I had been filling a container and in the morning our tank was empty! We hardly got any sleep that night as the wind continually buffeted our tent, suddenly changing direction in the early hours of the morning to begin lifting the window flaps like a parachute, until we had to close all the hatches! We discovered later, that Cairo had also experienced the strong winds and sandstorm and roads had been closed, March and April being the months when the dust-laden winds from the Sahara can sweep in at any time.
As we prepared to leave Basata the next day, I was delighted to find that some of my papers had been found and handed in and I was now only missing 1 sheet of writing!
We filled up our water tank and followed the road further north toward Elat in Israel, continuing past dozens of half-finished hotels. Their building had been halted overnight when the Israelis stopped coming across the border, following the bombs that had exploded at various tourist resorts in Egypt. It was like a ghost town. At Taba, just before the border, big hotels were open however, including the Hilton and Movenpick with their own stretches of private beach. There was not much else at Taba apart from Pharaoh's Island with its Crusader Fort, so we turned around and took the road back across the centre of Sinai, through Nakhl and towards Suez once again, where we wanted to spend some time watching the ships pass through the Canal.
This road was very scenic to begin with, carved through huge, craggy mountains with unusual, weathered rock formations and colours. However, it soon gave way to a tedious, flat and sandy landscape for many kilometres where we both had difficulty in keeping awake after our sleepless night.
We pulled up by a roadside stall for some oranges and melons and began talking to the driver of a large lorry parked at the edge of the road. On hearing my request for some bread, he hurried over to his lorry, opened a door in the side and pulled out a packet of flat Shamy bread and handed it over, refusing any money. We chatted with him for some time and discovered that he was from Syria but had driven lorries in many countries. His left arm was in plaster, as he had broken it whilst changing a tyre. He now drove his massive juggernaut with one hand!
The sandstorm had created huge drifts across the roads as we drove to the tunnel that took us under the Suez Canal once more and into Ismailia, where we stayed the night at the Mercure Hotel. We were very impressed with this large town with its leafy boulevards, numerous recreational areas and sports clubs. A large area, known as The Garden City, had been built originally for foreign employees of the Suez Canal Company. Ismailia is also famous for its mangoes and dates and we passed fields full of these trees although unfortunately, it was not the season for either of them yet!
The following morning, the hotel receptionist advised us to take the ferry back to the Sinai side where we would be able to have an excellent view of the ships passing through the canal from the east bank. The ferry, which was free, took 6 vehicles and once across, it was easy to find the large park with its massive memorial modelled in the shape of a bayonet, in memory of the 6th October 1973 Victory, when the Israeli forces failed to seize Ismailia. The army were out in force, cleaning up the area, hanging flags and those beautiful, colourful drapes, as President Maburuk was making a visit in the next day or so.
We spent some time standing on the bank, feeling completely dwarfed by the enormous ships piled high with containers. They passed silently down the canal, only about 50 metres from where we were standing, often accompanied by a pilot boat looking like a toy alongside. Just incredible!
Instead of returning via the ferry again we left Sinai by the Bridge of Peace, a long and very steep bridge with spectacular views as it went over the canal. Police on the bridge however, did not allow you to stop for photographs. So we had now crossed the Suez Canal by the tunnel, the ferry and the bridge!
We made our way back slowly through the traffic to Cairo and the Windsor Hotel.
- comments