Yesterday the eleven of us who wanted to do an all-night hike to the summit of Mt. Sinai loaded into a small bus at 11 pm. We traveled about two and a half hours through the desert, from sea level to about a mile high to arrive at the base of Mt. Sinai, the location where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments.
We had a private guide from a travel agency in Sharm el Sheik and met a local bedouin man who would help us get up the 2,500 feet of mountain as well. I shook his hand and noticed it was calloused all over the palm but that he had kind eyes. We received breakfast provisions which I quickly dumped into my laptop backpack as well as flashlights.
We couldn’t see how big the mountains surrounding us were, so we really had no idea about the scale of what we were attempting, as none of us are mountain climbers. Several of us agreed in hindsight that it was good not to know how steep the climb was, as we may have been quickly dissuaded to attempt the climb.
For two and a half hours we ascended sand and rocks and the occasional high step on foot. We stopped every 30 minutes or so and drunk in the stars and the Milky Way, as there is little light pollution in that part of the desert. We also replenished fluids, I noticed that my back was soaked through and even penetrating my back from the work of the climb. An Irish-born American named Dominick brought up the rear and chastised the rest of us for “loafing” each time he found us resting. At one point he sang us an old Irish folk song recounting Ireland’s history between jokes about the climb.
At our third stopping place we were finally able to see the moon, about only an eight full, and we could see the rest of the moon around that small part that was illuminated. We also noticed the shooting stars. It made me think of all the things we miss because most of us live in urban areas now.
After those two and a half hours,our path converged with the more popular camel path which brought up about 100 other pilgrims, many of them on camels. We waited at the starting point to the 750 stairs that lead to the top of Mt. Sinai. In my head I thought, “Great, about the equivalent of two Central American pyramids—I can handle this, even if we’re at 7,000 feet.” Little did I know that would be the hardest part of the climb. The stairs were constructed specifically to be arduous so that the religious people who used them would focus more on being repentant through the difficulty of the climb. At this point, the beginning of daylight was breaking through, casting a rich pink and orange glow above the other mountains whose peaks were now visible.
After stopping a few times on the stairs, I finally reached the summit. Jagged edged-mountains surrounded us on all sides, mostly the color of chocolate with some rounding to the edges. I hadn’t anticipated having any kind of special spiritual moment atop Mt. Sinai, but I found myself pushing back tears on several occasions. The sun came up over the ridge in the distance, and the colors on the rocks transformed from dusty grays to reddish browns.
I was so overwhelmed by the beauty, the simplicity of the mountains with so little human contact, the possibility of God revealing Himself there, the contentedness of the other people atop the mountain. I just kept wanting to cry and even now find tears forming in my eyes as I write this. I atemy hard-boiled egg and a roll with butter on the edge of the summit, looking out into the mountains. I remembered that despite the complications of an oftentimes frustrating life, real beauty is waiting for us. It was a real gift to experience this.
After about a half hour on the summit, I walked around the top and saw the large Ecuadoran group I had been traveling up the steps with. They seemed to be on a religious pilgrimage. I approached the seldom-used chapels (they were built for use a long time ago for the religious who used to climb the mountain for spiritual purposes—simple buildings of stone and mortar). Another group sang a religious hymn I couldn’t recognize. Finally, I descended about 100 feet to a small group of easily-constructed wooden shacks where coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are sold. The bedouins who run these five or six shacks also have mats and blankets where you can rest. Several of us piled into the humble accomodations and slept for a bit. The owners were kind and seemed glad to have us there. After a few short winks I went back outside and sat with another man on our trip who was also outside. Many of the twenty or so bedouin who run the place were outside. Some sat atop rocks and smoked; others helped donkeys bring large plastic containers full of water into their shacks. The men were dressed in the traditional galibaya (long, dress-like cloaks) with head wraps which are effective in keeping the head and body cooler (I later used my beach sarong atop my head upon our guide’s advice and found myself cooler). Some of the boys wanted to trade for my friend’s watch and his pedometer. He wasn’t willing to give either up, but we had a nice conversation in the few words we could exchange (they knew more English than we knew Arabic) about our ages, our spouses, and if we had children.
It took us about an hour and a half, maybe a bit more or less, to desend the trail to St. Catherine’s monastery, a Greek Orthodox monastery dating back to the 4th century. We started our tour at about 11 am and saw their rich collection of theological texts, one of the best groups of religious texts in the world. We also were allowed inside the sanctuary, which dates back to at least the 6th century. We finished with a traditional bedouin style lunch where a coop for women’s handicrafts thrived. On the bus back to Sharm el Sheikh, the bus was silent as we slept.
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