Today's wake-up call was early - 1:00. By 1:30 we were walking through the monastery grounds to the camel compound and by 1:45 we were on our way up Mt Sinai. The camel ride took us 2/3 of the way in 1.5hrs. Then there were 750+ steps to climb. A Bedouin guide was assigned to help me, and with his support and my mountain climbing stick we reached the last rest house just as the sky was lightening. We all waited for 45 mins and made the final assault on the summit in time for sunrise at 5:48.
The climb down was very hard, the path rutted, rocky and gravelly that we hadn't seen in the dark. The stragglers took more than an hour on top of the others and were thoroughly exhausted. We had just enough time for a quick shower, get our bags to the bus and stuff a bit of cold breakfast before we were off at 10:15 to meet the police escorted convoy to Taba, at the top of the Gulf of Aquaba. It was very quiet trip as most people slept. So we said a sad farewell to Gigi and Hashem, who had been fantastic, and crossed over the border into Israel.
Our new guide met us and took us to the hotel. We went to the beach but it was rocky and cold water, so we came back to the pool for a quick swim before dinner and an early night.
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