Egypt 1990 - Part VIII - Mt Sinai

How I remember it, with some writer's licence. Photos from the trip.

Sharm el Shaikh was not my kind of place, I realised soon after getting off the bus there. Thankfully, I just managed to get back on in time to leave behind the five-star hotels and head for Mount Sinai itself.

I had grown up hearing and singing of Mount Sine-ee-eye, and the people of Israel who journeyed for forty years in the desert of Sine-ee-eye. English sometimes cannot cope with double vowels, just as Egyptian Arabic cannot cope with double consonants in Suh-fin-cuss (Sphinx) and fil-lum (film). In Cairo the porter pronounced Sinai as Seen-eye. As for Mount Sinai, it’s thought to be the rock called Jebel Musa – Mount Moses.

Jebel Musa may or may not be where Moses received the Ten Commandments, Israel gave up waiting for him and worshipped a golden cow, and Elijah heard the still small voice (or silence) of God. But St Catherine decided it was, and so her monastery is at the bottom. So is the small village servicing Jebel Musa’s stream of visitors. There was a handful of kiosks, an establishment helpfully translated as a bokery, and a mosque.

That Friday lunchtime, the muezzin had a bad cough. Every time he gave praise to Allah, the loudspeaker echoed with stumbling and spluttering. It didn’t help that the vowels were drawn out and slowed down. He went on like that for an hour.

I felt much better than the day before and no longer hostile to Egyptians. Perhaps the muezzin’s struggles helped.

I wanted to see the sun rise from Mount Sinai, so I climbed up the bare mountain in the late afternoon. The summit was higher than I had ever been on land. The steeper Steps of Repentance, when not climbed on hands and knees, was a walk worthy of a middling Lakeland fell. Why did the people of Israel decide to start a new religion when they gave up waiting for Moses to come down, instead of going up to find him? Was the way too hard to find? Did they still fear the instructions not to set foot on the mountain after they gave up fearing the God who had given them? Is it that mountain climbing is a modern Western hobby? Or was it a different mountain?

At the top, it was surrounded by stunning higher red rocky ridges for miles. At least a dozen others and I slept at the top next to a mosque, a chapel, and a couple of refreshment kiosks. The sun set and rose slowly. It was worth it.

I stopped at St Catherine's monastery on the way down. It is full of fascinating ancient manuscripts not on display to the public, though the only artefact which interested me then was an alleged offshoot of Moses’ burning bush (not burning).

Click for what happened next.

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