Snow and surf, Dahab - Sinai

Hello all, greetings from Dahab, on the eastern side of the Sinai peninsula along the sea. It is a wonderful small comfortable feeling place for just about anything.

The Sinai area is very dry, with the exception of the coast and a few oasis. It is by no means flat and the scenery is stunning. It is dusty, sandy, colorful place with camels wandering about and local people living around oasis miles from anywhere. It is what i thought pakistan would be like. The coastal area is stunning with different blues of the sea. Off in the distance is Jordan mountains.

I recieved a bit of a scare. My first night in town, I was walking down the waterfront walk and a few arab gentleman said in passing "tomorrow it will all be over". now for a bit of history, a few months ago there was an attack in this area and the government is warning USA citizens to use caution and stay away from certain sites. I spent quite a bit of time, in my own mind at least, to try and remove any differences I saw between myself and any others here. I also tried to recognize a universal harmony that exists. The next night/day all passed with calm.

Two tough days of fun here. The first existed of canyon trips. A place called colored canyon, and it was. It was a mile walk down a deep water carved canyon which required some tight squeezes and some scrambling. We stopped at a small Bendouin(local people) village for lunch. It was a bit ironic because it was established as this beautiful out of the way oasis and behind the hut they had electricity and a satelite dish. The local people are having a tough time as development comes. They have less places to go and are forced to stop being as nomadic and are releasing thier camels, which are seen all over just wandering.

The next day was a trip to the St Catherine monastery (http://www.geographia.com/egypt/sinai/stcatherine.html) and Mount Sinai (Mt Moses). This is the place from history where Moses saw the burning bush and spent many days on the mountain and recieved the Ten Commandments. They are not sure if the bush is a decendant or not or if it is for sure this mountain but the general area is right. It is a beautiful isolated place. The bush was not burning when we were there though we did have quite a bit of excitement when we saw a firetruck heading up towards the monastery:).

The idea of the trip is to climb the mountain to see the sunrise or sunset. Our trip was for the sunset and by the time we got to the top it was soo cold(remember i have been in africa for a while). It started snowing at the top. The view was almost forever and if I had to pick a place to stay for forty days that would be it.

Today after the cold of the mountains I think I will go and try some snorkling at a place called blue hole.

Stay well.

random thoughts
-our minibus driver from the monastery almost hit a camel, big white easy to see camel.
- my name, Matt, means death in arabic, and this gets a bit of a chuckle when i tell it.