The majority of our group leaves Cairo Thursday morning at 2AM for St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai, and Sharm El Sheikh until Sunday afternoon. This weekend will likely be the highlight of the trip for me.
We're getting to St. Catherine's Monastery by a 7 hour bus ride. We'll arrive around 9am, tour the monastery and maybe some of the town, and then rest up during the afternoon/evening. At 2AM, we leave our hotel to hike Mount Sinai (elevation 7,500 feet), which we'll summit at sunrise. We're apparently doing a Bedouin tent experience afterwards. The combination of the hike and tent experience is supposed to make for a spiritually-moving experience. Which is good, because who can't use more of the Holy Spirit?
Friday afternoon it's off to the luxury resort of Sharm El Sheikh (where Dubya Bush was recently for a world economic (I think) summit). Check out the Photo Gallery on our hotel's website (click "Photo Gallery on the left side, in the middle of the page). The Sofitel hotel chain is apparently uber-luxurious. On tap for me in Sharm are a desert ATV tour and scuba diving off a boat into a coral reef (they'll certify me before I dive, so don't worry Elena). Apparently Sharm has the world's #1 dive site (which I obviously won't dive because it's for advanced divers).
Oddly enough, all the prices are denominated in Euros. Egyptian law was recently changed to require foreign travellers to pay for all hotel and some other travel expenses in foreign currency. The fact that all the prices are listed in Euros may show the prevalence of European travellers (there is talk that Sharm has topless beaches), or it may show how weak the Dollar is. Or maybe it's just a weird quirk.
Anyway, I'm pumped about this weekend, even though I could easily spend $500!
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