Nuweiba and St. Katherine’s (14 - 19 August 2008)
Nuweiba must be the saddest place I have been in a long time. In recent years there has been a number of terrorist attacks and bombings, and this lead to the downfall of this once bustling tourist town. All the shops are deserted and shop owners sit outside their shops and wait for clientele that does not exist; the supermarket’s shelves are empty and the restaurants are bare and rundown. We felt so sorry for the people there, but they were all hopeful that one day their town will be back to the way things were.
The hotel that the taxi driver took us to turned out to be okay. The owner was an old man with many stories to tell over a free cup of tea. We planned on staying only one day in Nuweiba before moving on to St Katherine’s, but ended up staying three days. We did absolutely nothing - in fact, we were so bored at one stage that we bought a very old tennis ball to play with in the sea.
Sometimes it is nice just to kick back and do nothing. Especially after a hellish trip like the one we had from Jordan to Egypt. And even though the hotel owner and his family asked us to stay longer, we decided to move on to St. Katherine’s.
St. Katherine’s is a protected area that rises up from the desert into the Sinai mountains. The main attractions are the St. Katherine’s Monastery and of course, Mount Sinai. The monastery dates back to around 330 AD and is sacred to the world’s three monotheistic religions - Christians, Jews and Muslims. Our reason for visiting was mainly for the climb up to Mt Sinai for sunrise. This is something I have always wanted to do.
There was no direct bus to St. Katherine’s from Nuweiba, so we took the bus that went to Dahab and got off halfway to Dahab at a junction on the highway. And then we waited for a lift. Hitchhiking twice in one week?! This time we did not have the same luck as in Jordan and after two hours we decided to go with a passing taxi.
We stayed at Fox Camp with a group of biology students from the UK. It was quite interesting listening to their conversations about the traps they set for vermin and the plant samples of they collected. The camp was quite a distance from the centre of town, but we were able to join in the buffet meals prepared for the student group. There was a definite drop in temperature and it was blissful to walk to the internet café without melting away.
The following morning, we got up at 1:30am and started the hike up Mt Sinai. We were told that it was a three hour hike and that there would be so many other people, so we did not want to start too late and miss out on a good spot or even on sunrise all together. It was quite a climb and I could not believe how many people were up at that time of the morning to walk up this mountain. There were people from all walks of life - old and young; thin and fat; men and women; fit and unfit (me!!). And then, as with all other Egyptian site, there were a million camel touts shouting: “camel, madam?” When the path became too rugged for the camels to continue, the touts improvised and would hand you their hand and ask: “Need any help?” What? Were they going to carry me up the mountain?!
Finally we were at the top! And it was very, very cold up there. We each had a jumper that helped a bit, but the cold was such a shock to my system - could I even remember what ‘cold’ felt like? And then we waited for sunrise…and waited…and waited. We did the climb in about two hours and we were nearly the first people to make it to the summit. We waited for two hours in the cold before the horizon started to change colour. At least we had a good spot, because as the dawn crept closer, more and more people appeared and everyone wanted a good view of the sunrise from Mt Sinai.
The sun rose over layers and layers of desert mountains and the horizon was lined with a spectrum of colours. As soon as the sun was out, the crowd started to disperse. We waited a while for most of the people to descent and then we started down the mountain. On the way down, we stopped at one of the many shai (tea) shops for a coffee and the owner invited us in and served us one coffee on the house because we could speak some Arabic- there’s just nothing like a hot cup of coffee on a cold an dearly morning.
By the time we reached the foot of the mountain, the temperature was already back to its Egyptian ways. Hard to imagine how cold it was just two hours earlier. We did a quick visit to the monastery that was swarming with tourists. The highlight was the Burning Bush - not burning anymore though, but still great to see. It was such a surreal feeling walking in the mountains that we have read about so many times in the Bible - walking up the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Back at the camp we spent the rest of the day catching up on the website and the following day it was time to head back to Cairo. The bus to Ciaro departed at 6:00am. The bus boy tried to charge us almost double the fee for the bus ticket, but he had a quick change of mind when he realised we understood Arabic numbers when we pointed to the price on the ticket and demanded to pay the correct amount. Seven hours later we arrived in the capital and headed back to Pension Roma, where we stayed the previous time.
I had forgotten how hot it was in that hotel with no air conditioning, and so we went searching for a different hotel the following morning. We settled on Hotel Ramses II: aircon (yeh!), cable TV (yeh!), breakfast, private bathroom (yeh!) and all this at the same price. Later it was quite apparent that we low price was due to the unhelpfulness and unfriendliness of the staff 
We had six days to kill before we were off to London and there were a couple of sights on our to-see list. First up was Islamic Cairo, also known as Old Cairo. We decided to follow the guidebook’s recommendation and walk from Down Town to Old Cairo. It was a Friday afternoon, and supposed to be similar to a Sunday afternoon back home. But oh no! The traffic was hectic and the streets were streaming with pedestrians making their way either to or from the big Cairo market, situated in the heart of Old Cairo.
We pushed our way through the sea of people, dodging cars, bicycles, donkeys and carts. We were exhausted when we finally reached the market and so we slowed down our pace and started our way through the many little alleys packed with street stalls. They were selling anything from food and clothes to spices and souvenirs. We made a deliberate stop at a sheesha shop where Eon bought a beautiful waterpipe. And with his excellent bargaining skills (mostly faking to walk away), he managed to get the pipe at a dirt-cheap price. We bought some more souvenirs and then pushed our way back home.
The rest of our time in Cairo was spent roaming the city streets and just soaking in the last bit of our travels. It was time to head home, but first we had a short detour to London.
Click on the image below to view the gallery for Nuweiba and St. Katherine’s: