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Day 68: At 2285 metres, Mount Sinai is not Egypt’s tallest but let’s just say what it lacks in height it makes up for in history.

Moses took down the Ten Commandments here. (We happened to be sitting on a rock waiting for the sun to come up when a nearby tour guide informed his charges that we were about a metre from the spot that he was believed to have received them.)

Mount Sinai is a pilgrims’ mountain. At the summit, around 6am when the sun was coming up, the atmosphere was high-spirited, as groups of pilgrims from various countries (Spain, South Korea, Indonesia) sang hymns in their own languages, while the photographers snapped away at the rising sun.

Once again, we were reminded of our ascent with hundreds of local pilgrims of Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka some years ago.

The climb up the so-called Camel Track was about 2.5 to 3 hours, leaving the bottom at around 2am. Going down the same way was much quicker, at probably less than 2 hours. The alternative route, down a set of roughly hewn stairs forebodingly known as the Steps of Repentance, didn’t look like much fun, however it would have offered a different view coming down the mountain.

While the midnight trip and 10am return to Dahab knocked us out for the rest of the day, it was an experience to remember.