The last significant trip that I took before finals was to the Sinai Peninsula. It was a short trip, taken over the course of a normal two-day weekend, which gave it a rather hurried feel. That combined with the lingering effects of food poisoning from the previous week made portions of the trip less than completely enjoyable. However, there were two highlights that definitely justified squeezing the journey in the limited time. One was snorkeling in Dahab; the second a nighttime hike up Mt. Sinai to watch the sunrise from its peak.
Dahab, the base of our brief adventures, is a world-famous place for diving and snorkeling. Among the many locations with spectacular coral life is a spot known as the Blue Hole, which is infamous for an underwater arch that several divers have died attempting to reach. Luckily my two friends and I had no such aspirations, and we generally stuck to the surface. The place is rather disappointing from the shore, and seems like any other bit of ocean, although the depth of the hole is apparent by its much darker blue. But after sticking your head underwater a colorful world of life emerges, one that presents a stark contrast to the bleak desert above water. We swam and stared for about an hour and a half, until my swimming abilities were more or less exhausted and we returned to the beach and then to our hotel.
The second adventure began that night when we drove to Mt. Sinai at 10:00 PM after attempting to sleep for five hours in a room that cost under two dollars and was worth about that. We reached the reputed site of Moses ascent at about 1:00 AM, and became part of one of the oddest movements of people I have seen. In an odd combination of pilgrimage, tourism, and mountain climbing, hundreds if not thousands of people ascended the mountain in the dark, sleepily stumbling up a winding trail and wondering how all these people could possibly fit on the top. Finally, after two hours walking, we reached the final resting stop where climbers could buy overpriced food or drink or rent camelhair blankets to fend off the suddenly chilly weather. For those who climbed especially early there were even beds that could used for a predawn nap.
We rested at this stop for a while and then made the final ascent, where an old chapel marks the legendary peak. We were still early enough to get good seats, if having a view of the
sunrise is the operative standard. Unfortunately they were also seats perched on the edge of thirty foot drop. Whenever an ambitious tourist attempted to climb the rock to my right they would seem to be on the verge of pushing me down this drop, and consequently I was quite ready for the sun to hurry up and rise. Finally it did, illuminating a landscape of rocky, jagged peaks, which reminded me of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and his description of a place where "the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water." Beautiful, but not particularly inviting.
Not much needs to be said about the remainder of the semester, other than that finals went well and by the end most of the study abroad students were plenty ready to return home, to a more familiar and seemingly sane land. But as they gradually began their flights to America I began the longest and most thorough trip through Egypt of the semester, with my newly arrived family. Their visit lasted 18 days, and included far more than I can include here, so I will briefly summarize. The first portion of the trip focused on Ancient Egypt and southern
portion of the Nile Valley, which I had yet to visit. We saw a large number of temples, monuments and tombs, some of them famous and others relatively ignored. We also enjoyed a three day river cruise, during which we didn't have to worry about food, tourist hacks, or the other myriad problems of independent travel. Some of the sites, such as Abu Simbel and Karnak Temple, astound with sheer size. Others, like the Tombs of the Nobles at Luxor, were less breathtaking but more accessible with their simple paintings reflecting everyday life.
After our time in Luxor we stopped for a day in Cairo before heading west to Siwa, an oasis on the edge of the Sahara that was famous in ancient times for its Oracle, whose most famous guest was Alexander the Great. The oasis is a welcome sight after miles upon miles of featureless desert, and is large enough to support over 30,000 inhabitants, although its main town feels much smaller than that. Our main purpose in coming to Siwa was a three day camel safari through the surrounding desert. This safari was, by consensus, the best part of my family's visit. Siwa felt like another culture, more African and joyful than the rest of Egypt, but also more conservative, especially in the dress of their women. The desert was amazing, with classic views of dunes, countless shells from its days as an ocean bed, and unbelievably starry skies at night.
Finally we left Siwa for a day in Alexandria, followed by two days in Cairo, during which my family saw the Pyramids, Coptic Cairo, and the Islamic quarter. Then it was time for the flight home. Of course Egypt couldn't say goodbye without one final inconvenience, in the form of a two-hour delay in our departing flight. Luckily we had left a long layover in Germany open, and so we managed to catch all of our planes and even enjoy a delicious German lunch in downtown Frankfurt. Twelve hours later we were in Denver, and my semester abroad was finished in the same place it begun. However, my reflections on the time were only beginning, and will no doubt continue for a long time. I hope to share some of those thoughts, but I should warn my readers to not hold their breath.
