Off the Couch and On the Road

And so it was that after seven months of travelling – of packing and repacking, waiting in airports and taxis, haggling and deciphering maps, laying on beaches and gazing in museums – I had found a place to settle, for a little while, at least.

It was luxurious, a studio within a heritage house in the suburbs, where I could enjoy a real bed and a bath, central heating, free phone calls and internet (the pinnacle of a travellers wish list). The sister and I slept in, watched TV, went shopping, read books and enjoyed the changing colours from fall into winter, like a rainy weekend that never ended.

We half-heartedly looked for work, turning up for some interviews and not for others – started work in a fashion retail store one day and quit the next. Once we both happily secured jobs in a coffee shop and were planning the weekly shopping list, it hit me. I needed to leave, to go somewhere, to see something. Man, I needed to travel.

“Let’s go somewhere,” I casually mentioned to the sister, who had endured flight delays, typhoons in Taiwan and a night in a dodgy hostel with a buddist monk to finally arrive in Vancouver less than a week before.

“Sure,” she said dryly. “Whatever.”

Visions of trekking Maccu Pichu, shopping in New York and horse riding in the Grand Canyon immediately sprung to mind. I was just about to whip out the credit card when she made her point.

“But we can’t afford to go now. We’ll work and then we’ll travel,” she said.

Right. Good point. For now, we were settled, back on the couch. For a little while, at least.

-Sarah

The 15-hour bus ride from Calgary to Vancouver seemed to pass three times as fast as a 5-hour flight ever could. I spent most of that time trying to find an adjective appropriate in describing the colour of the water at the base of the snow-capped mountains in Banff National Park. It was clearly cold, frozen at some points, rushing at others, sometimes so still as to perfectly reflect the leaves from the tree branches above.

Tinffany blue, I decided, and then immediately regretted my choice. Tiffany’s didn’t exactly conjure up images of stunning mountains surrounded by low clouds, snowflakes melting in the blinding sun. But it was Tiffany blue, I thought. Perfectly.

The scenery made the trip somewhat enjoyable, though by the time I had arrived at 9.30pm in Vancouver, British Columbia, I was so tired I couldn’t muster up any excitement of being in a new city. And this could be the city – the house and job and real life city, for a few months at least – so the pressure was on for it to be palatable. A new day would tell.

I woke the next morning to clear blue skies, not-so-cold temperatures and a boundless energy usually reserved for end-of-season sales. And Vancouver was beautiful. I walked from one side of the harbour, across the city, to the other, and window-shopped, explored and sat in the sun admiring the yachts, thinking that instead of a choice of which neighbourhood I did want to live in, I would be hard pressed to find a neighbourhood I didn’t.

Palatable? Definitely. The sister was arriving in two days, joining me for the last leg of my adventure, and I couldn’t wait to have someone to discover the city with. And slightly expand my wardrobe options too, of course.

-Sarah

It snowed on my third day in Calgary. Snowed. Is it just me or does it seem completely insane that I was snorkelling one minute and being snowed on the next?

After a lengthy discussion with the immigration guy on where I should live in Canada, (‘Well m’aam, you got the choice of being very cold or very wet. And some places you got the choice of being both.’) I was stamped through as a working resident of Canada for 12 months and crashed on my hostel bed for a long, deep sleep.

Calgary is a very pretty town, small enough to view the countryside and mountains from a few floors up but developed enough for a city feel, with skyscrapers and malls galore. It was ironic to see the fall colours in abundance – yellows, reds and browns, some tree branches already bare – like a memory I have only experienced vicariously through TV and books.

I had three days in Calgary, one of those spent recovering from jetlag and the other two in bed, sick from what I have decided to call the now familiar ‘Sarah-moves-continents’ flu. Which meant I didn’t really see much of Alberta, so I don’t really have much to report. Except that it snowed.

-Sarah

It was an easy trek down Mt Sinai and we barely had time for breakfast, a shower and a longing glance at our unslept in beds at the hotel before the 8-hour journey back to Cairo.

The hotel staff in Cairo welcomed me back like a long lost friend, and the group celebrated our last night together at the local restaurant with the ‘Best Juices in Egypt’ (a title not given lightly, let me tell you). We reminisced with photos, promised to catch up when our itineraries coincided, and parted ways the next morning, sadly bringing my two months in Africa to an end.

I truly loved Egypt – it is full of contrasts, exceeding all expectations and providing a glimpse into an ancient world of love and war while moving forward with full steam ahead in the 21st century. Though I wouldn’t dream of living there, it is perhaps one of my favourite places to date, though to compare it to anywhere else would be impossible, and a mistake.

Next stop, Canada.

-Sarah

St Cathrine was, apparently, a woman who declared herself a bride of Christ and refused to marry some king or another, so he burnt her at the stake unsuccessfully, following which he beheaded her to make sure she was well and truly dead (how can you, I ask, burn someone at the stake unsuccessfully? What where they using, candles?).

They made her a Saint (I can’t remember why) and many, many years later (I can’t remember how many) they named the firecracker ‘Cathrine wheel’ after her, as well as a Greek Orthodox monastery and the town surrounding it. I can’t remember the connection between becoming a Saint as well as a firecracker, but who wouldn’t be stoked at being both?

Ok, so that’s the history bit done with, as much as I was listening to anyway. After our bus ride to the town of St Cathrine, we wolfed down dinner, grabbed our day packs and all agreed to climb Mt Sinai at night, instead of at 1am when all the other tourists would be hiking up. That way, we reasoned, we could take our time and get some sleep on the top of the mountain before sunrise.

The trek was amazing by moonlight – we were the only ones on the camel path and although it was a struggle after doing slim to none exercise in about 6 months, I made it up the final 700 steps and collapsed in my sleeping bag on a smooth patch of rocks at the summit of Mt Sinai by about midnight.

Mt Sinai (Mt Horeb in the bible), at 2,285 meters, is the mountain that Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on during the dynasty of Ramses II where he received the 10 commandments from God, inscribing them on stone tablets. It also has considerable religious significance to Islam as the place where Mohammed’s horse, Boraq, ascended to heaven.

Christian, Greek Orthodox, Judaism and Muslim pilgrims from around the world still trek up to the summit to pray and surround themselves in the holiness of the place. Which is just lovely of course, except just when we had closed our eyes for a few hours respite, they arrived, and the wailing began.

And man, it was loud. Like a symphony of tone-deaf exhibitionists, one man’s chanting clashed with a woman’s crying, both trying to unsuccessfully mask the sounds of others praying loudly in a variety of languages. Sleep was not an option – I think I have found more peace and holiness in my bathroom.

I decided to emerge from my sleeping bag when I was stepped on my an enthusiastic Asian tourist trying to steal our front row spot to view sunrise (‘dude, I slept here’) and have to say for all the effort in getting to the summit, it was truly a magnificent sunrise.

No wonder Moses wanted to do it 40 times. I just hope he got some sleep.

-Sarah