WE DIDN’T DAWDLE TODAY IN THE SIQ and quickly squeezed by a couple of tour groups. We have walked here, where Indiana Jones rode in The Last Crusade, half a dozen times and are almost immune to the views. Except for the first sighting of the Treasury, that is. And we still had a couple more kilometers to go before we reached the stairway to the Monastery.
You climb 800 stairs . . . or sit on your ass
Today was our day to climb the so-called Monastery. The guys who hire out donkeys claim there are 800 stairs, hoping to make their fee seem reasonable. Personally, I would rather crawl on my knees that ride a donkey up the steep stairway. (I would crawl on my belly before riding on a camel!) I am pretty spry for a 67 year-old geezer, but a geezer nonetheless and the stairs seemed steeper and the trail longer than I remembered. But we made it in good shape and had the Monastery pretty much to ourselves.
