Commentary on the Ordinary

Why don’t animals like me?

(St. Catherines – Cairo)

The Skull House

We left the beach camp early & headed to St. Catherine’s, which is thought to be the traditional site of Sinai. We finally arrived and went straight to the St. Cath monastery. This Greek Orthodox monastery was started by ‘Helena’

(or Catherine) who was Justinian’s mother. Her story is rather interesting. She was raised secular and was quite knowledgeable and educated. In her adulthood, she converted to Christianity and was quite bold in sharing her beliefs, which eventually lead to her martyrdom. Of course, they have turned her admirable faith into a reason to worship her. With this in mind, she apparently died on a hill south of Sinai and ‘angels’ carried her bones to Sinai where some guy apparently found them and brought them to the monastery where she is worshipped. No surprise there! You can actually see her finger bone in a little box inside the church. Oh lets bow down to that! The main chapel was as you would expect- idolatrous, drab, & dusty. We also saw the burning bush (no longer burning sadly…) and Moses’ well (dried up). Again a load of bunk! The highlight of the monastery was the ‘skull house’, which was filled with the skulls & bones of former monks. After the monastery we stopped for some cash & snacks before heading to our hotel for some rest before our trek up Mt. Sinai.

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“I did nothing all day!”

(Red Sea Camp)

Slept in…read “Fosters: Celebration of Discipline” pretty much all day. Chatted with people, watched Jen snorkel and ate. That’s the day!

Under the Sea!

Jen: I went snorkeling for the first time in my life and loved it! Alison and I ventured out to find the reef about 10 in the morning. The water was a bit cold, but we were determined to find it because we had heard rumors that snorkeling/scuba diving in the Red Sea is tremendous. After swimming for about 10 or15 minutes, we came across a sea cucumber or two and then one or two fish…we kept swimming…and then…we found it! An AMAZING reef teeming with life…The coral was multicolored and formed an underwater cliff. I was fascinated! We ended up spending about an hour with our faces permanently underwater and only finally returned because we were cold. After lunch we went out again, this time with our camera in hand. I was a bit worried as our mate, Tyler, had taken his ‘waterproof’ camera out earlier…the water destroyed his camera. Our camera, however, did wonderfully. Alison and I spent another hour exploring the reef. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Our Red Sea Beach Huts

In the late afternoon we played beach volleyball against another Intrepid group who were staying at the camp. (Jen had no idea Dave played volleyball! And not half badly either…). We won 2 of 3 sets. I met a guy called Jim who is from Melbourne and is doing Agriculture in Pakistan. I ate calamari for lunch & dinner. The camp cat attempted to swipe my calamari. I chased the cat with a shaker stick. It was fun.

“Dance music is junk all over the world!”

(Wadi Rum – Aqaba – Red Sea Camp)

Baby Camels!

We got up early and packed quickly. No showers so I look like a gorilla that’s just had a fit. We said good bye to the camp & met the bus in the nearby village. We got to see some baby camels- so cute! We then proceeded to the port town of Aqaba. Here we were thankful for clean “western” toilets. We explored the town in a short period of time- we went to a liquor shop (my countrymen needed some for Egypt), a bakery where I got a thing that was like a sausage roll, got my soumak spice and made a quick visit to McDonalds for some fries.

We then went to the port, got our passports stamped and boarded the ferry which was stationary for 60 minutes. In all, the trip took 3 hours. When we got into the Egyptian port- what a mess! It took us another hour to pass through the doors of the ship (all the while being tortured by hideous Arabic music videos). It wasn’t much better than what we got outside the boat. Talk about chaos! We had to go to this bank and buy our visa (in American cash only), then go to the passport office and have some guy stick it into our passport before getting it back. Talk about a redundant process (did I mention we had to line up inside the ferry in order to surrender our passports in the first place?). Then we had the delightful task of waiting in line to clear customs. I think we angered some of the Egyptians because we got to jump ahead of them. Finally, we made it to the bus, where we met Ahmed. We then proceeded to our Red Sea camp near Nuweiba.

The Red Sea!

The camp was called Sawa, which means “friendship” and was beautiful. The main communal area was a series of marfrashes together and had a pool table to boot. There was a smaller one that ran along the western fence line which was good for getting some rays while reading. The property backed onto the sea- it had a great view of Saudi Arabia across it.

Our huts were simple but superb! They were about 3m x 3m and only had a bed covered by a mosquito net. The walls and roof were thatched reeds and palm leaves. Very cool in the heat of the day. After settling in, we had a refreshing dip in the sea and had our supper on the beach. The food was really nice- I had chicken kebab. Afterwards we returned to our hut for some shut eye.

“How many camels for a wife?”

(Wadi Rum)

We left Petra and headed to Wadi Rum via a couple of pit stops for photos & tea. The trip took about 2 hours before we got to the visitor center at Wadi Rum. It is definitely a beautiful country- desert with jagged mounts piercing the sand in all shades of reds. I can understand why the Bedouins live there! At the visitor center we had an opportunity to photograph the “7 pillars of wisdom” which was aptly named by T.E. Lawrence (from Proverbs 9). Also, we met our host for the evening- a true blue Bedouin Sheik. He was a really nice guy who tried to woo a wife from the single girls in the group. From the visitor center we loaded up our 4WD and went for a desert safari. Again beautiful & picturesque.

A Nabataean rock carving

We saw rock carvings (the birth one by far the funniest), sand dunes & natural rock formations like the rock bridge that Jen climbed up to. I was so worried that she would fall, but she got her two feet firmly back on the ground with no problems. We then proceeded to our camp. I was an awesome but simple place nested between two mounts. It was a series of canvas tents furnished with the Bedouin equivalent of a marfrash. Very homey. We walked to a near by point to watch the sunset behind the hills. Breathtaking!

Sunset at Wadi Rum

For supper we had soup, chicken, potato & onion. The latter 3 were cooked in an underground oven buried beneath the sands near the camp. A very hearty meal. We then talked for a bit, had story time (from the very funny book “Married to a Bedouin”) and made our bed under a theater of stars.

It was so awesome & romantic to sleep under the stars in the desert with Jen. I wouldn’t want that experience with anyone else. After a few hours, the wind picked up and we took full cover under the blankets. It was quite warm except that the sleeping bag etc. ended up in a twisted mess. A great night!