Sinai

The Sinai Peninsula has had some troubles of late. However, we couldn't resist some much deserved rest and relaxation at the beach after 3 weeks of sucking dust throught the Middle East. We caught the 'fast' ferry from Jordan across to the Sinai and got a bus to Dahab, not without some serious bartering with the bus drivers. Welcome to Egypt, the land of hard sells and scams. Everything is negiotable here, and it drives you crazy.
Dahab is a beautiful village on the Gulf of Aqaba that once used to be a secluded bedouin village, but is slowly becoming a backpacker/tourist mecca. The hordes of Russians that invade the Sinai are starting to extend their reach from Sharm el Sheik up to Dahab. Nonetheless, it is still a wonderful place with good accomodation and plenty of opportunities to laze about drinking milkshakes and just generally recharging the batteries. We spent a full week there and could quite easily have spent 2 weeks, but temples and tombs beaconed.
While in Dahab we managed to see the 2 main tourist attractions, Mt Sinai and the Blue Hole. The trip to Mt Sinai was really good. We left the hotel at 11pm in order to hike to the summit in time for sunrise. Luckily for us we picked a full moon night, so the 2 1/2 hr hike to the top was under an eerie light, which gave the surrounding mountains and valleys a lunar feel. The sunrise was very good, but partially ruined by half the population of Moscow, all of which were not exactly dressed for the occasion. You would think that if the description of the activity included 'climb a mountain' you would leave the high heels back at the hotel. At the bottom we visited St Katherines Monastery, the oldest in the world, and keeper of the Burning Bush. However, Leighanne is convinced that the Burning Bush she saw 12 years ago was an entirely different species of tree to the one that is inside the monastery now.
Next stop was a snorkeling trip to the Blue Hole, a 160 metre deep abyss only 5 metres from shore. Sadly the coral has been badly damaged by snorkelers and divers, but there were still thousands of fish swimming about.
Our remaining time in Dahab was spent eating lovely seafood, drinking milkshakes, sleeping on cushions next to the sea, and generally being completely lazy. A wonderful week.
We are now in Luxor and getting psyched up for some serious temple, tomb, and hieroglyph viewing.