Best Birthday Ever

Mount Sinai rises 7,493 feet above sea level. It's a 10.5 mile roundtrip hike from Saint Catherine's Monestery and takes about 2.5 hours each way. It is broken up into four phases, the last of which involves climbing up 750 "stairs" to reach the top.

Three nights ago our group (of about 20) left the hotel at 11:30pm, drove for 2 1/2 hours to the monestery and began our hike at 2am (on my birthday!). What an experience! Every few minutes you have men trying to sell you a camel ride to the top. They tell you how hard and exhausting it's going to be on foot and remind you of how far you have left to go. Bastards. Then, to top it off, the lazy asses that didn't feel like exherting any effort, and thus, chose the camel ride, yell "no light! no light!" every two seconds at the people with headlamps or flashlights (apparently the camels don't like the light), which, by the way, is pretty much everyone because HELLO! It's the middle of the night!!

Small annoyances aside, we all reached the top at 4:30am, excited, exhausted and freezing. There are (of course) men at the top renting out mats and blankets so you can stay warm and comfortable while you wait for the sun to rise.

Everyone huddled together under mounds and mounds of blankets and all of a sudden, the whole group starts singing me happy birthday, right there on the top of Mount Sinai. It was a pretty cool experience....

The sun rose at 5:45 and we were finally able to see how vast and beautiful the area was. We all took tons of pictures and by 6:15 we started the hike back down. Let me just say, thank god we hiked up while it was pitch-black outside because I think a lot of people would have quit had they been able to see how far they had left to go (not to mention the sheer cliffs you're walking along at times).

Eventually, everyone made it down in one piece. We visted the monestery and saw the burning bush (so they say). After some showers and naps we all went into town for our last night in Dahab and had dinner at another gorgeous restaurant right on the water. After the plates were cleared, Mustafa, our guide, brought out a giant cake and an entire restaurant full of people sang happy birthday to me.

Hands down, the best birthday ever....