Karol and I spent something like 5 days in Dahab, during which time I took approximately 0 pictures. It’s not that Dahab wasn’t nice – it was great. But it’s really somewhere to go to relax and unwind, and isn’t a place that inspires you to take photos while you’re there.

We snorkeled almost every day, and had $4 dinners at nice ocean-front restaurants. Our friend Shaima, who we had met in Cairo, joined us for a few days and on our last full night in Dahab the three of us went to Mt. Sinai.

The trip to Sinai leaves Dahab at 11pm, traveling ~2hours to the foot of the mountain. Arriving around 1:15am, it’s a 3-4 hour walk up the mountain to watch the sunrise. I’m really glad we did the walk at night – even with the occasional camel dung landmine taking out members of our party – because on the walk down we realized just how long and steep the climb really is. Not to mention it’s about 95F during the day.

We caught the sunrise about 5:30am. I somehow ended up next to a group of cult-like Asian religious pilgrims who would alternate between singing hymns, breaking down into fits of hysterical sobbing and crying and, in some cases, apparent speaking in tongues. It was….interesting, to say the least.

After sunrise we walked back down the mountain to St. Katherine’s monastery, which turned out to be really boring, and then caught the minibus back into town. We spent the rest of the day sleeping and eating before catching another overnight bus back into Cairo.