Hi All,
Got to say that travelling with a day pack is so much easier than having all our gear. Jumping on buses and taxis is so easy. Caught the bus from Alexandria to Port Said. Only a couple of hours. Arrived at the bus station with no map. The lonely planet had a few ideas and we hoped to go to the place called hostel in town. This was not so simple as none of the 10 cab drivers jointly discussing it knew where it was located even though we had the address. They wanted to take us to hotel dela... and wanted too much anyway. Eventually we just started walking - in the wrong direction as it turned out - and then went back to the bus station. We eventually found an honest taxi driver, rare gems, who drove us to the hotel dela...(forgot the ending). We went and found the tourist office and got a map and found the hostel but it was too late and the hotel was cheap. Went for a walk along the suez canal frontage then caught the free car ferry across then back again just for the fun of it. Went looking for food and couldn't find anything for a decent price. When I say decent then word is cheap. Was really hungry and grumpy by the time we got back to the hotel and asked the front desk. They directed us the a kushari place about a block away. Excellent. Mmmm. Kushari again for 3EGP each.
Next day. Decided to give getting to St Katherine monastery another try. Caught a bus to Suez and a small bus station which we almost missed. Had a bit of a wait for the connecting bus to St Katherine so read for a while then went to find a toilet. The toilet inside looked like a camel had backed itself in and exploded. Looked like it had not been cleaned since it was installed. Came out of the toilet and had locals pointing, Vanessa near the early bus with all the bags and an agitated bus person. Had to run for the bus but at least we made the connection.
Noted along the way that there were buildings that looked like large salt and pepper shakers. Turns out that these are used for pidgeon coups.
There was a greek priest on the bus who had been many times before and when he got excited about 5hrs later and asked the bus to stop we followed him out the door only to find that we had gotten off 12km too early! The priest got it wrong. Luckily the military police located where we stopped arranged a taxi and we went to a beduin camp outside town called desert fox and near st Katherines monastery and luckily they had a room for us. We had a nice chicken meal in the smokey communal tent around a fire and met a couple of Swiss traveller driving to capetown and heard a few jokes. One joke from one of the Sinai Beduins in the camp:
Three camels in the desert walking in a line. The first says 'in front
of me is desert and behind me are two camels'. The second says 'in
front of me is a camel and behind me is a camel'. The third says ' in
front of me is a camel and behind me are two camels'.
How is this possible? The first two camels are from Sinai and the last
is Egyptian.
Seems that the Sinai Beduins do not consider themselves Egyptian.
Next day. Woke up quite unwell with my lingering cold getting worse. Vanessa was unwell with a her lingering chest infection. What to do? climb a mountain! We walked out to the monastery after a breakfast of biscuits and had a quick look around. Apparently the big bush inside is a desendant of the moses buring bush from the bible. We set out to climb Mt Sinai to see what all the fuss was about. Plenty of beduins with camels offered us rides up but we declined and started plodding along. It was a 750m climb on a not to steep gradient but when sick it was really really difficult. We got to the pass and found that we still had 300 steps to the top. Hard going. The step of penance were certainly taking it out on us. Was surprisingly cool at the top of the mountain and most people climb for the sunrise then to the monastery in the morning. No way. I'll watch the sun rise from the warmth of the camp thankyou.
There was a small locked chapel at the top of the mountain, a german tour group and no extra commandments that moses might have missed. The view was alright but not particularly spectacular for us with the best highlight being the hidden monastery which could not be sighted on the way down due to it's clever concealment.
Met Kelvin in the camp. A quiet well spoken englishman who made pottery fluits. He was kind enough to give us some local beduin medicine called samwa used for infections to help with Vanessa's ongoing chest infection.
I flopped into bed and slept for a while after the mountain climb. It just didn't seem worth the effort of the climb to me.
Next day. Up early. Caught the bus to Cairo. There was a bit of wind around that had shaken the window shutters on the room overnight but didn't seem like much. Had to wait around at a roundabout for the bus and gladly it turned up with seats available. Clarifying point. We could have gone to the bus station and bought tickets but we didn't bother. Once we got outside the mountains it was evident that there was quite a good sandstorm blowing and at times the visibility was down to about 5m. The effect was the same as a snow blizzard but of course a bit warmer.
The bus didn't like the sand and after a few hours started to sound terminal and by the time we reached 40km from Cairo seemed destined to fail any second but it made it and we again got lucky. The bus dropped us off near the railway station so it was a quick walk, dodging the beeping sea of cars, across the road, and to the hotel.
Got a room on the road side of the hotel with the intent of getting one on the quiet side 'as soon as one was available'. We knew they were lying to us but it was cheap.
Bye.
David & Vanessa
