If you've ever wanted to climb Mount Sinai, this article might be enough to change your mind. It's fascinating in an "I'm so glad I don't have to do that" kind of way.
Some set out at 2am to walk the seven-kilometre camel path from St Catherine's Monastery on the valley floor, then leave their camels behind to ascend the 750 stone steps to the summit. Judging by the way the tethered camels stick their tongues out sideways, mocking passersby, they're grateful they don't have to climb any higher.
I left at 4.30am, having walked the camel path the previous day and slept in a camp site surrounded by 1000-year-old cypress trees and huge, ancient boulders.
Named Elijah's Basin, the camp site boasted a shop where the proprietor climbed off his prayer mat to serve customers. There was also a sit-down toilet so filthy that a fellow trekker warned: "Don't even think about it."
This would be good advice to anyone contemplating a third route to the summit — climbing the 3000 steps from the monastery to the camp site and then the further 750 to the top. That journey, aptly named the Stairway of Repentance, would cripple the fittest football team, assuming nobody died first, cartwheeling through the night to the valley floor like the original St Catherine, a virgin who denied a lustful king. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
At the Monastery of the Burning Bush
Ancient monastery opens library
Elsewhere:
Biblical Mt Sinai - Wikipedia