We just climbed Mt. Sinai

And boy are we a little slap-happy in this pic. Not working on a lot of sleep because we left Dahab in a van with a surly driver at 11:30am. Surly drove us to St. Catherine, where around 2am we started hiking. First we passed St. Catherine's monastery, where apparently they have THE Burning Bush. Not an STD. The one Moses saw.

Then we hiked for three more hours by the power of our guide's cell phone flashlight. And the moon. The stars were incredible. We saw shooting stars, satellites, and the Milky Way.

And lots of camels. They are adorable, even when they are charging down at you on a five foot wide trail on the side of a mountain. Somewhat stupidly, we didn't hire one to ride up. Call it hubris, call it bravado, or call it what it is: Michael's too cheap to spend 16 dollars on a camel. Any way you slice it, we walked.

It's about 7 kilometers up to the top, then 750 steps up to the summit.

Along the way we saw quite a few Koreans, many of whom prayed and sang as they walked. We could see a Bedouin village down in the valley. And we saw some amazing cliffs as we shuffled and stumbled our way up the rocks.

Finally we reached the top, where there is a church and a mosque, just in time for the sunrise.

We also left plenty of room in Michael's backpack in case the Stone Tablet with Commandments 11-20 showed up. No such luck.