Mt Sinai
Monday, October 8th, 2007After resting, eating a nice lunch and resting a bit more we went to St Katherine’s Monastery to start the hike up. We decided to watch the sunset rather than sunrise so leaving at 2:00 PM put us on top of the mountain around 5:00 PM. The walk up was a nice path until the top when it joins the Stairway of Repentance trail (3000 steps up the mountain built by a monk) and another 750 steps run steeply to the top where a chapel can be found. The views during daylight are stunning all the way from our hotel, past the monastery and to the top. We noticed a number of chapels or monasteries on the way up and there were hermit “huts” as well. During the way up I thought about Moses taking this same general path on his way up. Actually, I thought about Charlton Heston doing that since most of the images I have of Moses and the Exodus are from the Ten Commandments movie! I suppose that the Exodus started in Thebes so this is all quite good for us. I believe I am going to the church in Ethiopia where they say they have the real Ark of the Covenant. I like the idea of seeing where the Exodus started, where the tablets were handed to Moses, where he probably broke them (wadi area below monastery which is suppose to have been the site of the golden calf) and where the container that supposedly has the broken tablets resides (later in trip). I like the story of Moses as well as the rest of the Old Testament because Christianity, Judaism and Islam have at least something in agreement 🙂
vagabondrick