Aim High to Travel: Day Ten

Day 10: Dahab

Today we woke up at 4am to make sure we're on the bus leaving Cairo at 4:30 am. It's a 12 hour bus drive to Dahab. Today is the first day with the other group there are 6 of them and only 4 from the group before. Luckily we have these other girls who are so nice so ill probably just be hanging out with them most the time. We arrived at the hotel for 2 then went straight to the market area to sort out food for dinner called Ali Babba. There were so many stray animals just walking all over the place. At the restaurant there was this cat that wouldn't stay away from me. Taking the rest of the day to explore Dahab really helped us know our way around.

We had to wake up at 10pm that night to head off the Mount Catherine. Mount Catherine is the second tallest mountain in Egypt. It took us 2 and a half hours to get there by bus so we didn't get there till after 12:30. At 12:30 we started to hike all the way to the top of the mountain. Mount Catherine is 2645 metres above sea level.

This is the region through which Moses is said to have led his people, eventually to the Promised Land, and there are legends of their passing in many places. Of course, one of the most exceptional locations is that of Mount Sinai, where Moses met with God who delivered to him the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

There was a camel trail you had to walk up which went for 7 Km. The camel trail was surrounded by so many little rocks that you kept slipping over. Because it was so late at night it was pitch black so everyone needed torches. I really didn't want to slip over because I brought my flash SLR up the top of the mountain to take some awesome shots. After the camel trail this is the second part of the journey 750 stairs to climb. I would have been alright if they were actual stairs but these were a spiral staircase of rocks. Some wobbled while you trod of them which was pretty scary others were in place and was a breeze. Overall I was pretty proud of my effort we hardly had breaks. I really thought I would have been sooo unfit!!

It took us 6 hours to climb up the mountain to the top which is we're a little church used to be and a viewing point. It was definitely worth the view we stayed up the top for a few hours to get out breath for going down. When we were ready to go we started climbing down the mountain. I thought climbing down would have been harder than climbing up but it wasn't. I slipped a lot more though almost fell over around 10 times hahha. By the time we got down the bottom it was 8:30 am the next day. I knew from then on it is going to be a long day!!