When we went to Egypt on our honeymoon in April 2011 we climbed to the top of Mount Sinai in the middle of the night so as to see the sun rise at the top.
We got to the summit a few hours before dawn, so all curled up in Bedouin tents on the mountain side and slept until an hour before dawn when we were woken with hot sweet super-strong coffee, and we walked to the top wrapped in blankets to wait for the sunrise. In the pitch blackness we found a perch and waited with lots of other people hidden in the dark.
The sky became a slight pink colour and suddenly we were able to get a feeling for how high we had climbed. The sunrise was really beautiful, and I filled my camera’s memory card trying to capture it, but I could not capture the transformation from being frozen stiff wrapped in lots of blankets and all the clothes I had brought to Egypt, to becoming too warm within minutes of the sun coming above the horizon!
Tired and happy we went down the mountain to visit the Monastery of St Catherine which is famous for being the site of the story of Moses and the Burning bush. The bush is still there, with a strategically placed fire hydrant just in case of the appearance of Moses II
Click on any of the thumbnails to see a better picture
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- Peter’s Headdress
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- Asleep in a Bedouin Hut
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- The sky begins to lighten
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- The sun appears
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- I’m not at my best first thing in the morning!
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- Strong Coffee to prepare us for the lohg descent
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- It’s a long way down
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- We didn’t see this sign on the way up in the dark!
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- Emergency Clinic
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- Our Guide the Mountain Goat
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- Down
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- We made it!
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- St Catherine’s Monastery
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- St Catherine’s Monastery
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- The burning bush & the strategically placed fire hydrant
For other interpretation of this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge check out Good Morning!
Day One 
Enjoyed all the pics. The one of St. Catherine’s Monastery…..the rock outcropping in the background….if you look for a minute you can see in looks like a man’s face wearing a Bedouin headdress…. crying out.
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Lol 🙂
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Thanks for sharing your photos, well done.
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Thank you 🙂
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Great work, Barbara. The rising sun photos are fabulous. Hope you’re feeling better.
blessings ~ maxi
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Thank you, I love the big one 🙂
Not feeling any better yet, but resting more, eating much better and looking after myself, so hopefully I will be better soon xx
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Based on your sharing… if (a big if) I ever visit Egypt and attempt the same sunrise, I will put the camera on a tripod and attempt to take a timelapse video of the sunrise instead!! I’ve never tried doing timelapse videos before. Should be interesting. 😀 Have a great day!!
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Hiya
I think it would be difficult, as the second the sun appears it gets very bright… I suspect any time lapse photos would be completely saturated!
I did see lots of people with tripods though 🙂
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Great photos. Which was the more difficult, climbing up Mount Sinai in the middle of the night, or descending in the morning? I always prefer to climb than to slip and slide my way down a mountain. Mind it will quite a while before I tackle one again.
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Mount Sinai was really high & I found the climb up harder than I expected, at one point I got really light headed. It took us about 4 hours to get to the top. I found the way down easier, it was light and warm, but we’d only slept a few hours and were already tired from the climb up, so by the time we spotted the monastery we had seriously wobbly legs! I’d love to do it again, but I doubt I could make it at the moment!
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what a great experience for you. loved the pics and really hope I get to see this one day
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It’s wonderful, well worth a visit, but I think you need to wait a bit until things settle down in Egypt. I don’t think they are running tours there at the moment 😢
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