Sinai and Jerusalem May 21-25

I had come to Aqaba in order to join a trip to Mount Sinai with some members of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. I had not been to Mount Sinai before, and after a couple of planned trips that had fallen through, this trip was too good an opportunity to pass up.

So on the morning of May 21 I crossed over the border to Eilat and then went to the Taba border crossing to Egypt. I waited there for a couple of hours until the group arrived from Jerusalem. We crossed into Egypt and were met by an Egyptian tour guide. We stopped at a tourist spot in Nuweiba, before arriving at the St. Catherine’s rest house around sunset.

The next morning, May 22, we all left at 3:00 am to walk up Mount Sinai in time for sunrise; I would have been just as happy to do the walk in daylight. There were a couple hundred people on the summit at sunrise. Most were Christians of various diverse nationalities, as well as Muslims and Israeli Jews. Things were cool, making Mount Sinai a unique holy place where Christians, Muslims and Jews can all gather without the need for soldiers with machine guns standing guard.

Me at the summit

The group at the summit

The view from the summit

We were back at the rest house at 8:30. After a nap, I joined the group for a tour of St. Catherine’s monastery. It was Friday so the museum was closed, but we did get a tour of the library by one of the monks who is from the US; meeting him was a highlight of the trip. At noon we went to Nuweiba, where we checked into a beach resort. That afternoon, I swam in the ocean, played volleyball with the others and swam in the resort’s fresh water pool.

The group at the Nuweiba resort

One curious thing both at the St Catherine rest house and in the Nuweiba resort was that meals were included in the package deal, but drinks, including even water, had to be paid for separately. I had not come across that situation before where drinking water at meals is not part of an all-expenses paid package tour.

The next morning, May 23, I relaxed and swam in the pool some more. We checked out of the hotel at noon and traveled back to Taba, where we crossed the border to Eilat. We were met by a bus that took us to Jerusalem, arriving at 7:00 pm. I checked into the Jaffa Gate hostel, there being no available room at the Albright Institute.

May 24, Sunday, I went to services at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer and then in the afternoon I went to the Albright Institute, where I met my colleague Khader Salameh and others. That evening I joined the Albright fellows for a barbeque.

On May 25, I went to the Islamic Museum on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the morning, having to pass through the tourist entrance since my pass from the Aqwaf administration had expired. In the afternoon I went to the Albright Institute and then to the British Institute for a lecture about the famous British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon. Afterwards I went out with Steven Werlin, one of my Humayma staff members, and a friend of his, for extended conversation.