"On Holy Ground.:

 “And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest [is] holy ground.”  Exodus 3:5

  I entered back in to Egypt and back to Dahab and stayed in a cheap dorm room at the beach, spending days walking along the edge of rocky beach in both directions, enjoying the wind and warm sun, and staring out at windsurfers sweeping over the sparkling blue of the red sea with the desert town creeping right to the edge and brown and barren mountains looming above in the background.  I walked several miles in each direction until the pathways ended and walked along rocky uneven beaches with scattered sand.  The farther out I walked, the prettier everything became, narrow beaches of stone opening to far stretches of sand, and huddled restaurants and hoards of sun bathers and beach goers left in the distance and traded in for the tranquil hush of seclusion.  Is there some direct correlation between solitude and beauty, between serenity and silence?  My best and worst moments are perhaps wrapped up and mingled in the lonely moments of being all alone, but the lonely moments of some solitary beach, some walk through a warm wind, or a quiet moment a world away, these are sharply outlined and bunched like bouquets of babies’ breath.  They are beautiful; they are the accessories that make a life. 

 Staring out across the narrow waters along the coast of Dahab, I looked across the sea to the mountains of Saudi Arabia and also Jordan.  It is almost painful for me to know I am so close to a country, and yet not visit it, and I had to put off Saudi Arabia because of difficulties with a Visa, and while in Jordan I came within a mere mile of the Israeli border, and yes, it nearly hurt me to know such a place was so close, and yet I would not visit those countries.  I still have many travels and adventures to plan and look forward to, and I will cross those borders some day.

  One day in Dahab I spent snorkeling in Dahab’s famous Blue Hole, a bumpy ride beyond the city, passing camel camps and tents and the omnipresent mountains of the Sinai Peninsula.  The Blue Hole is a deep drop of water encircled by shallow waters of coral causing the sudden contrast of blue in the water, light blue above the coral, and dark blue of the deep hole in the middle.  It seemed unearthly, some cosmic creation of swirls in space.  It is amazing how the water drops so steeply down from the coral to depths unseen in the clear sapphire water.  I swam about spotting colorful fish dashing through coral, and dodging snorkelers and the bubbles of scuba divers below. The water of the sea shifted and trickled in to emerald and indigo, cobalt and jade, such greens and blues that were splashes of paint.  I think that God decided to prove how beautiful the emptiness of a desert could be, and so he created the Sinai Peninsula, throwing mountains in moulds of rocky clay and adding bleak and barren sand that extended out to a thousand miles, and then God created a sea, and looked down at the brown and orange and yellow and white of the desert and the water that lapped softly on the shore, and He knew His work was not finished, so He filled water balloons with paint in shades of blue and green, and in a playful and omniscient laugh, He dropped the balloons from high on to the water of the sea, and the colors splashed in to the water in uneven splatterings, thrown  and smudged against the canvas of sea. 

  I also went scuba diving at another beach in the Red Sea, with the clear waters and soft sand, the corals and the steep drop from shore.  Myriads of multi-colored fish swam around me, long, skinny, short, fat.  The water was so wonderfully clear, so picturesquely blue.  It is a pleasant feeling to be under water, freely swimming and staring eye to eye with fish deep below the surface, the feel and sound of breathing through a tank and the rise and fall of your body with every inhale and exhale of oxygen.   It is a freedom, staying so long below, deep down in water with the feel of billions of barrels of water and pressure softly folding around your body in gentle divides.  Perhaps scuba diving is something I should get in to more. 

    Another of the highlights of the Sinai Peninsula, and a major reason for my venture out to the Red Sea was Mt. Sinai itself.  One night, I caught a ride to the mountain, and in the cold of a desert night, I climbed the mountain.  The mountains here are so rocky, so steep, though it was an easy hike.  Tents along the way offered Bedouin Tea and blankets to rent to warm up hikers in the frigid and frosty night.  I met a Malaysian guy and climbed with him, walking slowly so as not to reach the windy and freezing top too early, though we still did.  I hiked Mt. Sinai, where Moses stood and received the Ten Commandments.  God Himself stood and spoke upon that mountain top.  I have walked the path of prophets and stood in the steps of God, and there I watched nature’s homage to her creator, the sun rising above the mountains, a prelude of primary colors signaling up the fast rise of a fiery sun, glazing orange across endless ranges, casting grey shadows on the back of peaks.  A Jewish group stood encircled and sang quietly in reverent tone.  What a sunrise!  What views! What mountains, so massively barren.  A month before I stood where Adam stood and watched the sun rise over a tropical island, and then only  a month later in the pre-dawn of early morning I stood where Moses stood, and where God stood, and watched the sun rise over a desolate and mountainous peninsula.  What places have I yet to stand? 

  I stayed up on top as the sun quietly climbed and the mountains morphed and mingled with color.  There were “oohs” and “awes” at the sparkling and spectacular sun that shed carrot and crimson hues across limitless views of sand and stone. I looked around at the harsh unfertile land, barren and empty, and laughed inside and wondered that God must have burned all the bushes on that mountain when he spoke to Moses from behind a burning bush.  Like Jordan, here was an unequalled simplicity.  The folds and lines of mountains rippled in to the slithering curves of more mountains, a hard and ubiquitous stone rising from the all-pervading desert. 

  I hiked down with my friend, enjoying talks of culture and religion, asking and answering questions, sharing and learning.  We passed the crowds of hikers and followed a different path down that wound through skinny uneven trails mixed with brick and stone arches and an immensely wild desert mountain.  At the bottom we stopped at St. Katherine’s Monastery, the oldest working monastery in the world, containing what they believe to be the burning bush in which God appeared to Moses.  I think they reached that conclusion by process of elimination.  It was about the only bush on the mountain. 

  Sinai was amazing, the hike up in the dark and the biting wind and the calmness and reverence of sunrise on a holy mountain.  I enjoyed the rest of my time in Dahab walking alone along the beaches and strolling through the tourist shops and small restaurants.  One restaurant was a Russian restaurant.  One Russian couple was eating there when I showed up and they told me the restaurant had very typical Russian food, and shortly they left leaving only me at the restaurant.  It was hardly a restaurant.  It had only three tables and patio chairs around them all located on the roof of a building, out in the air of night.  The kitchen was a tiny room also on the roof, and the waitress was also the cook, the hostess, and the dishwasher.  Her mother who was visiting on vacation helped in the kitchen, and the father sat at the table next to me and in very broken English talked to me.  The food was great, and obviously home cooked, and I had one of the most delicious drinks I have yet tasted, Sahlyab, made from sweet milk and hazelnut, with nuts and cranberries, and other goodies and spices.  The Sahlyab at that restaurant was amazingly fantastic, almost like a liquidy tapioca.  I wish I could have it again.  Oh delicious and yum!

  After the mountain hikes and canyon walks, the sandy strolls and the calming swims, I had to leave the Red Sea and her beautiful beaches.  I took a night bus up to Cairo and spent more time up there exploring the city.  I am not entirely sold on Cairo.  Like every city, it has some great areas, though it was certainly not among my favorites.  I also went up to Alexandria, having heard so much about Egypt’s second city located on the Mediterranean Sea.  I knew I wanted to see the new and modern library of Alexandria, the largest in the Arab world, and certainly a wonderful library.  Alexandria was not what I was hoping it would be.  The parts of the city directly along the coast were alright, but even two blocks inland it was like the rest of the cities in Egypt, filthy, crowded, and horrible traffic.  The ruins of ancient Egypt are an orgasm of architecture and history.  Modern Egypt, however, is a smorgasbord of filth and waste.  I wasn’t impressed with any of the cities.  I spent days roaming around Cairo, looking at mosques and markets, walking small alleys of crumbling buildings and eating schwarma and koshari.  I became a fan of koshari, a typical and inexpensive Egyptian food. 

  I spent all the holiday season there in Egypt and Jordan, roaming about on my own, meeting momentary friends, which comprise all of my friends of the last several years.  I live a transient life of a wandering gypsy, and in moments, I wish it to be no other way, though certainly I often wish to share my many moments with someone, and even crave for stability and permanence with an urge to settle down, but not yet finding anything calling out loud enough to force me to stop, not yet finding anything that calls to me in more than a whisper, and with the winds of many continents, I cannot hear the whispers, so I keep going.  Perhaps someday, someone or something will want to more than whisper, and perhaps, I will want to listen. 

"Among all the stupendous works of Nature, not a place can be selected more fitting for the exhibition of Almighty power.”

-          John Lloyd Stephens on Mt. Sinai.