A dive into the Red Sea

On Thusday, plans fell through to go visit my friend in Galilee for the weekend, so I decided to join others in a plan to go down to Mt. Sinai to watch the sunrise on Saturday. We left early Friday morning. Around 7:00a.m. our bus left, taking us down along the Dead Sea, through 4 hours of desert, finally reaching the tip of the Central Bus station in Eilat at around 11 o'clock. We took a bus to the border, where we stopped at a hotel to use their rest rooms to change.

The Red Sea was absolutely beautiful. The view of Jordan and Saudi Arabia was magnificent over the great blue water. The rocks along the shore glistened and shimmered in the sunlight, even through the water. There was little sand, and as we swam out further, it became rather apparent that those glimmering rocks were most likely placed there, because they were only on the shore haha. Regardless, it was a nice free beach without the hastle of sand, which I thoroughly appreciated. There was a bridge that reached about 40 ft into the Sea to which we swam. My friends, Craig, Theo, and Crosby all took it upon themselves to dive into the water off of the bridge. I have just within the past two years become better at swimming and going under water, so diving in was quite a feat in my eyes. I looked at them enviously and decided, "Hey, if I'm going to learn how to dive, I might as well do it in the Red Sea." I had that erking feeling in my stomach of indecisiveness as I considered calling it a day and learning some other time. Craig held his video camera in my direction giving me the thumbs up. Then I remembered, I won't have another time like this. I put my arms up in that arrowhead position, placing palm on top of backhand, and proceeded to dive into water, head first, for the first time ever. It was amazing. The tragedy is that Craig is a goon and totally pressed record right when my feet entered the water. Worst photographer/cinematographer ever lol.

We crossed the border after our little swim and lunch at the beach. Crossing a border is always frustrating without a student visa as a student. I'm not quite sure why the director of my school did not have us get one, but it really does cause a problem lol. "What are you doing here?" "I'm with a study-tour group, we're just touring the land." "So you study here?" "Well, I'm touring right now." "Where do you stay?" "At the American Institute in Jerusalem." "So you're studying here, why don't you have a student visa?" "I don't know." "Alright, I'll ... blahblahblahblah get a student visa." Dumbest thing ever. So I got out of that, and we all found a taxi driver and bartered with him to take us from the border to Sinai, and then take us the next morning at 11:30 from Sinai to Nueva, and from Nueva back to the border at 3:30 p.m. We got him down to 800 Pounds, which is roughly 160 dollars. There were 8 of us, so it was 20 dollars each. If you do the math of all the miles (or kilometers) we drove in that time, you'd realize that this is RIDICULOUSLY cheap!!!

Tourists in Egypt are blessed with the Tourist Police of the country. We were accompanied by a man dressed quite well, hair slicked back, gun at his side, all the while we were in Egypt (except for the hike). We weren't even charged for his services! Really, we weren't put into a position to need his services, fortunately.

We arrived at the foot of Sinai Mountain around 6pm. We got settled into a Bedouin village named Fox Camp. It cost 15 pounds to stay there a night, and 25 pounds for a meal (Remember, 5 pounds to 1 dollar). We ate and went into their little town and hung out until 8 and went to bed. I met a guy named Muhammad and spoke with him a little bit, sharing the Gospel with him. I did not, however, have a Bible on me, so I'm not sure whether or not he will think about it - it is times like these where I realize even more that it is the Holy Spirit, and not I, that does the work.

We woke up at 1:45 a.m. on Saturday to trek up Mount Sinai. Our taxi driver was awake and prepared to take us a little closer than we already were. A guide named Solemon (yes with an e) was going to take us up the mountain for free (I'm not quite sure how legitimate that was) but he ended up being left behind. A mass of people stormed in front of us as we got closer. Hundred of people, maybe thousands, all prepared to climb this 3 hour path up the mountain. We wanted to be among the first up there, so we marched on making haste. It was a tremendously tiring hike, especially at such an early hour.

Every step of the way, we were dodging humans and camels alike. Dozens of Arabs shouting, "Camel!" at us in attempts to get some cash. The camels made some of the funkiest gargling, bubbling noises I have ever heard in my life. It sounded like the water was escaping from one hump to another, forcing bubbles of air out of their mouth and flabbing there lips with the force. There were shops set up all of the way, including at the very top. We arrived at the peak, where both a mosque and a chapel stand, around 5 in the morning or so. Hundreds of people were already atop the mountain, causing plenty of commotion. More Arabs were there offering blankets in the same annoying broken Enlish. I only say annoying because when you hear the same tone of voice in the sound of a question, peaking at a weird falsetto in offer to snag some money from you, it becomes terribly annoying.

We climbed a fence and got on top of the very unsturdy chapel roof. You could tap your finger on the plaster and hear a thump. And here, some losers decided to follow us and jumped from the side of the building into the center of the roof, one after another, as we crept lightly along the sides lest we would fall. Fortunately, it was more sturdy than it felt, and it held all of us. Looking down, you could see hundreds of feet of drop-off right in front of you. We eagerly awaited the sunrise, which was every bit of what it is cracked up to be. The great flame arose over the mountains, shedding light upon the land, illuminating every cleft and crevise by it's shadow being surrounded by light.

We departed from there, descending down the 3750 steps of Repentence - and believe me, at that point I was almost repenting the beating my body was taking. I'm just kidding, it was really worth it, and my legs held up better than I anticipated. We actually kind of off-staired it on the way down. We climbed down the rocks and boulders for some extra fun, all the way to St. Katherines Monastary. Apparently, the burning bush from 3200 years survived all of those years, and is conveniently placed in the monastary on a ledge along the wall. I'll tell you what, I did not even waste my time taking a picture of this fallacy that people flocked to just touch for a second. Sorry, but that is just stupid.

We went on from there back to the camp where we slept to gather the rest of our belongings. We left around 11am to go to the shore at Nueva. The drive through the desert was no better than the first one, though we did hit 150 kilometers per hour. Our body gaurd friend took a picture of the speedometer as we went, which totally encouraged me to do the same haha.

We arrived at the beach of Nueva around 1 pm on Saturday. We ate lunch at a decent place that had absolutely great pizza. I am seriously still shocked from how good it was. This beach had much more sand, and a much better sight in all directions. Goggles, a snorkel, and flippers awaited us at the beach, where I had my first experience looking at a reef fifty feet out from the shore. It was amazing. The spikey, black sea urchins were huge and spread out everywhere. The jellyfish, countless in number, floated by me, one after another. The fish poked their heads in and out of the sea floor, which was only 4 feet below me, and at points not even that far. Craig took a lot of pictures of the fish and sea creatures, which I still have to snag from him. After I got out, I saw an enormous school of fish right near the shoreline. It was unfortunate that Craig had just gone back out to find a shark when that school appeared (he was unsuccessful in finding a shark).

We left the beach at 3:30, as planned, and spent the next 8 hours travelling back to our home in Jerusalem. What an amazing trip!!