Day 7: Dahab - Becoming Moses

Due to Mt. Sinai's height, I was unable to climb it yesterday since I had dived and did not want to succumb to the bends. Therefore, I was required to do nothing today so I can ascend Mt. Sinai tonight, a truly exhausting task.

My doing nothing consisted of snorkeling at the Blue Hole. Here's a Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXQbucZUDA.

Again, it's ridiculous how close this stuff is to shore. Three steps off the beach and you're in the blue hole. No worries about difficult entry.

Currently I'm shopping to climb Mt. Sinai (food and water). We leave the hostel at 11 PM, start climbing at 3 AM, watch the sun rise at the apex, descend, and then tour St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot. Because I am continuing to Jordan the same day, a van will take me from my hostel to Mt. Sinai, and a separate van will meet me at a checkpoint in the road as it makes its way from the hostel to Nuweiba (where I catch a ferry to Aqaba, Jordan). I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of waiting in the desert for a van that may or may not come. However, my hostel assures me that they fulfill that request all the time.

I've had to make the first alteration in my trip. I needed to acquire a visa into Syria before I left the USA. I did not. Therefore, I will be unable to visit Syria and Lebanon. Instead, I will visit Israel, and possibly Cyprus depending upon whether I take a ferry into Turkey or fly into Turkey. Thoughts?

A couple of sociocultural observations to note. I never considered what it must be like for women in Abbayas to proceed through security checks. Here, they have human boxes at all places (bus stations, train stations, airports) that require picture identification and female attendants dedicated to specifically ushering women wearing Abbayas into those boxes where they will then take off their veils and show their identifications. Not sure how they would do that in the United States.

Also, I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of tourists I've encountered from developing countries. Just five years ago in Europe, everyone I bumped into was either from western Europe, Canada/USA, Oz/NZ, or Korea/Japan. Now, and here, I've run into a very high number of Latin American tourists from Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Some tour operators don't even assume I'm Japanese and konichiwa me. For the first time people have approached me with "ni hao." Maybe it's just the super international attraction of the Pyramids, but I have a feeling this is probably changing elsewhere, too.