Day 12: 12 hour Bus Ride to Mt Sinai

Leaving at 7am, we began our 12 hour bus ride to Mt Sinai! One hour in, one of the people on the tour realized they left their passport at the hotel... uh-oh! So with that, we stopped at a little shop while the tour leader and her went to retrieve it. During this time, I got to see a very dirty toilet and had to practice my long range shooting skills! I swear I was literally outside the stall when I took my aim! Anyway, also played a game of backgammon and won! My 2nd time playing, what good luck!

So after the passport was gotten, we cont'd our travel towards Mt Sinai, passing through the Suez Canal. Arriving at 8-9ish pm at the food place, I decided to gorge down on the food since 1) I have only eaten a pancake/crepe after my slight brush with sickness and 2) I needed to stock up my malnourished a55 for the climb tonight! For $5 USD, there was chicken, meat, macaroni, meat sauce, bread, and soup... supposedly. Hungry boy that I am, I was very disappointed and p!ssed off that the food was luke-warm and it seemed like we were eating leftovers. wtf!? I think this is the first time in my trip that I actually asked the tour leader in a harsher tone to tell the people here to heat up the goddam food. It's funny in a way, because the cooks first brought out new empty plates, then new bread, and then started refuelling the canisters, then heated up the food. Talk about stupidity! By the time we left, the food was still lukewarm and not hot at all. If only the food was hot, it'd be an awesome buffet at a very reasonable price. However, when the chicken and beef is cold, not to mention there was no soup, the buffet was crap.

The last part was that we ended up at a guest room right inside the St. Catherine's Monastery. Great idea at the time; wake up half an hour late, should include a good breakfast, less travelling time overall. However, to get these guest rooms, we gave up our reservation at a hotel where there was an outdoor pool that is bigger than Cummer's. The accommodations at the guest room: A place comparable to Yosemite camping cabins (refer to the 'accommodations blog' entry for more details). Lucky we were only there for 4 hours, since the climb's at 2am.