Cairo - Mt SinaiOct 17, 2010
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| Room mate arrived in around 130 after her delayed flight. Up at 0530 for a a 630 off, breakfast box in hand - juice, cheese, hard boiled egg and sweet bread rolls. Did the job though. 2 1/2 hours to the Suez canal and about 50 km out started passing a lot of military posts. Tunnel under the canal not particularly long but the canal itself quite disappointing - Not a lot to see but did capture a few ships that appeared to be on the sand. Looong drive to Mt Sinai and St Katherine;s monastery. Funny Chalet type accomodation, but good shower and good bed Yay! Huge meal brought out to us for luch but as it turned out we were going to need all the sustenance we good take on. Picked up at 2 pm after a brief rest and taken to Mt Sinai.Not at all keen and personally was preferring the camel route option - much gentler gradient just longer.But did all 3750 of the steps of repentence, our fantastic and lovely guide ended up carrying my pack and helped me over the steeper parts. Got down to 20-50 steps at a time and then would have to rest and pant. I thought my lungs were going to explode!legs fine, but puff hopeless. Think I was also more dehydrated than i realised after Cairo. Had a couple of electrolyte replacements on the way up and managed to keep the cramping at bay. The other guys were very patient waiting for me, but it was really worth it!! took some fabulous shots and got the sunset. Passing a lot old Russian on the last 750 steps - they had taken camels most of the way but it was still quite a slog. Back down in the dark on the camel route, much easier. Only 10 mimutes behind the young things at the bottom. Tipped out guife extremely well Back for beer, buffet, couple of ibruprofen and panadol - expecting to be very sore in the morning!! |
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