What the Sinai Desert Hides
- Friendly Fins
- Dec 24, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 7
Good morning Friendly Fins today we will tell you how to wear a hat, scarf and windbreaker in Sharm El Sheikh, which has always been famous for its mild and pleasant temperatures.
It all started with my colleague Andrea's thirtieth birthday celebrations. From that we were supposed to do a wreck dive to deciding to do something new!
And what? Why not go to the monastery of St. Catherine, nestled in the Sinai desert?
The Sinai Peninsula is politically Egyptian but geographically Asian, bordered to the east by the Gulf of Aqaba and to the west by the famous Suez Canal and is made up almost entirely of desert...Rocky. Well Friendly Fins we find ourselves in an environment made of valleys and mountains of which the highest mountain is Mount Catherine (from which the monastery takes its name) with a peak of 2,637 m, better known as Mount Sinai.
A quiet excursion in the desert however degenerated into a night trek of 7 km and 750 steps to discover the Sinai and the wonderful sunrise in the desert, ending then at the monastery.
Mount Sinai Night Hike
So Friendly Fins we are ready, night excursion to Mount Sinai, we leave after dinner and reach the slopes of the mountain around midnight. From here we meet our guide who officially christens our group of 9 people in "Lotus group", this name will come back recurring throughout the trip to call us to the roll call! And obviously then became the catchphrase of the entire excursion.
At the beginning of our journey, we find several Bedouins (from the Arabic bedu meaning desert dweller) who want to sell us ponchos, torches or a ride on a dromedary.
A little incredulous, we ask ourselves where all these dromedaries are that they are insistently advertising... Let's continue...
The guide gives us a small torch to at least see where we put our feet and so shortly thereafter we immediately discover where all the dromedaries were hidden. In fact, a particular scenario of these tall, motionless animals opens up before us along our path in the Egyptian night. Only their cry echoes in the night and makes everything really wild with their shadows that are reflected on the stone.
The Desert Walk to the Top of Mount Sinai
Stunned by the discovery, to say the least, we continue walking, starting the climb like a kind of long torchlight procession with these small torches that move in the darkness, but we are not alone... The Lotus group begins to be escorted by Bedouins and dromedaries who walk with us, almost side by side due to the modest width of the path.
We soon find ourselves talking to the dromedary next to us!
Our guide's pace is firm and moderate enough to give us the opportunity to raise our heads and be enchanted by the quantity of stars that are shining above us.
Truly breathtakingly exciting...
The small refreshments of Mount Sinai
During the journey we have the opportunity to make a few small stops at Bedouin refreshment points. Almost magically these small stone refreshment points open up in front of us where it is possible to buy water, biscuits, various sweets but above all drink something hot like coffee and delicious Bedouin tea.
Just what a tea lover like me needs! I remind you Friendly Fins that we are going in January and up here the temperature is around zero degrees. A break from the cold and the wind is pleasantly welcomed by everyone.
The last 750 steps
After about 3 hours of walking we arrive at the fateful 750 steps that will take us to 2285 m above sea level, the goal of our trek. Knowing that this is the last effort to see the famous sunrise, we face them all determined until we reach the last real refreshment point that will allow us to rent blankets to position ourselves at the summit and not suffer too much from the cold.
(We strongly recommend renting them, the cost is 3 euros, but trust me it is the best investment of the excursion!)
The panorama 2285 m
With these very heavy blankets we take the last flight of steps that takes us to this seriously singular terrace: on our left appears a small stone church with a tiny bell tower, a few steps ahead instead on the right appears a small mosque. An incredible place where two very different religions truly coexist and are in perfect harmony with each other…
We position ourselves just behind a small wall to shelter ourselves from the freezing wind, just in time to see the sky turn fiery red, here is the dawn!
After all this effort we are here on Mount Sinai enjoying the sunrise over the desert, at a certain point a familiar sound echoes around us! The sound of a bell!
The bell of the little church, I haven't heard this sound for three months, my heart starts beating fast, as if in an instant it would bring me home, in the winter silence of a walk with the dogs, in my little Piedmontese village... Sounds of home...
Beautiful, really beautiful.
The colors begin to fade: we go from red, to orange and finally the sun begins to rise high in the sky and colors these mountains, finally we can see the Sinai that has been hidden all night.
The Monastery of St. Catherine
The mountains around us that appear imposing remind us how small we are compared to Nature. Despite the still strong wind, the sun begins to warm our bones a little and the call "lotus" tells us that it is time to start the descent again, in an hour and a half we are back on the slopes, admiring this landscape that we have visited only in the dark.
Finally the monastery of Saint Catherine appears before us with these high walls from which olive trees sprout,
It was strange to see them in Egypt!
We enter the monastery, past the cloister with the olive trees, we arrive at the most salient part: the Burning Bush of Moses, from which in 527 the emperor Justinian had the monastery built around it.
It is clear that we are neither historians nor art history critics to explain anything more to you but the thing that touched us most closely is this sacred place for Christians, Jews and Muslims, who live together in harmony with each other, in this timeless corner of the world.
The monastery became a UNESCO heritage site in 2002 for its architecture, the collection of icons and Byzantine manuscripts of unique value. The small Byzantine church near the Burning Bush is exemplary proof of this.
Personally, I really liked the outside of the monastery: well kept with the monks' rooms, the vegetable garden, the farmyard animals, it gave me life in a desert and hostile landscape.
An absolute must-see... but also a must-hear silence within its walls.
After the visit we return to Sharm El Sheikh, with a journey of about 3 hours. A truly unique excursion of its kind, an alternative outside the classic tourist circuits that makes you think a lot about history and the environment.
Travel Tips
In your Friendly Fins backpack you can't miss:
The heaviest clothes you have including gloves, hats and scarves, if you think you've overdone it with clothing, take another shirt!
Better to bring water and food for breakfast,
If you have a head torch it will be very useful,
A great desire to live an adventure between past and present.
If you are still thirsty for fun and knowledge you can throw yourself into another beautiful excursion during your vacation... Click here
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