Sinai Trip

Now these pictures were taken in the day, as in the nite it was really too dark and my camera was only a pocket type (not at all suited for this type of shooting).

The Bibilical areas that we read about are now more of a reality for me. Imagine Moses (he was more than 100 years old then) walking and climbing these slopes (all so rocky and that too in those days he did not have the paths as we had, nor rest stops). The whole area is just barren rocky hills and mountains.

Another view of Sinai desert from the summit of the mount. I'm standing at the endge of a precipe. It is around here somwhere that God communed with Moses and gave him the 10 commandments.
It is easy to imgaine how the people of Israel would have felt after Moses left them. As we climb up the mountains, we loose total visibility of the base and with all the bends and curves, Moses would have just disappeared from their sight. And then to wait like that for 40 days and nights can make one wonder whether Moses was alive.

A view of the Summit from a little distance down. See the cleft on the left. The picture on the right shows a closer view of that same cleft. It is probably one of these clefts that Moses was hidden in while the Lord passed by. Truly breathtaking. On the real photograph, if one looks closely, one can see a trail of people still coming down the slopes. We were ahead of many. While climbing we were probably the last!!!!

A friend and I did not want to miss this opportunity to visit Mt. Sinai during this tour (we are only three hrs. drive from Mt. Sinai and so as great adventurers booked for this tour.
Wow! We sure did not know what we were getting into.
Our tour coach collected us at 2200hrs and there was a three hr. drive to the base of the mount. From there we had to walk till the top of the Mt. Wow! It took us till 0530hrs to reach the summit. The weather was cold, and the night was dark. We were not alone, infact there was truly an exodus. Felt just like the Biblical times. The old and weak ones took camel rides to the top (well near the top, as the last section has to be climbed on own stregth, as it's 700 steps and camels can't go there). The strong ones (including us, though towards the end we regretted it :) took to walking. Wow! The walk was long. Each one of us were given a torch light and that was it. We could see this long line of moving lights and we just kept plodding along. Did not think we'd make it, but well it was worth it.