I can't remember much of what I've been doing since I last wrote. All I seem to recall is applying suncream and then complaining to myself that I haven't been turning brown. Tan update: my feet are brown apart from a few red spots that have appeared along my flip-flop line as a result of some sort of heat rash. Sexy. My lower legs are, I have had to concede, immune to the sun, and are as pasty and white as if I'd been wearing a pair of gaiters for the duration of my holiday. My knees are brown. Result. My thighs are also brown, but fat. Irritating. My stomach is the colour of molton Galaxy, but, as discussed previously, this is entirely useless. My chest is uneven in hue and a bit blotchy. My face and arms seem to be turning a healthy shade, but I refuse to be lulled into my customary false sense of security, whereby I become convinced I am bronzed, spend hours looking at myself in my hotel room mirror to confirm the fact, and then fall for the conspiracy that is doubtless agreed among all airlines to make the mirrors in aeroplane bathrooms make everyone look at least seven shades darker than they are in reality, so that I waft through the Gatwick arrivals hall convinced that people are falling over with envy at my perfect sun-kissed appearance, and allow myself a few moments of concern lest my friends and family fail to recognise me, confusing me instead with some unnaturally blonde Native American Indian, and then I arrive home and look at myself in my non-conspiring mirror and realise that I am precisely the same shade of off-white that I am in midwinter.
In the brief moments when I am not busying myself with tanning, I did something fairly momentous: I followed in the footsteps of Moses by climbing Mount Sinai. Should you ever attempt such an expedition yourself, let me inform you that your trip will go roughly as follows:1. Take seat in minibus at approximately 11pm. Drive through Dahab to another hotel, to pick up collection of assorted tourists from multiple countries. Leave Dahab and travel for approximately two hours to the base of Mount Sinai.
2. Exit minibus and meet guide, Mohammed. They are not all called Mohammed. But mine was. Set off up gently sloping path, lit only by moonlight. Think to yourself 'This might actually be fine,' but then look up to your right and see Mount Sinai towering above you and wonder how you will make it to the summit in the three hours Mohammed says it will take. He should know. He has walked up it pretty much every night for the last two years.
3. After 7km of winding and gradually steepening paths, reach the foot of the 750 stairs that will take you to the summit. For the forty-ninth time, refuse Mohammed's offer of hand-holding and bag carrying, trying not to get into some Germaine Greer-influenced row with a man whose few words of English probably don't include 'patronising' or 'chauvinist'. Take a rest with your group. Glower at the really weird Australian girl, Angel, who has the body of a gymnast but the face of a wizened old hag and nicotine stained teeth that make her look half-female, half-drug-addled-rabbit, because she has happily allowed Mohammed to carry her sizeable rucksack and hold her hand since we left the carpark.
4. At approximately 4am, begin climbing the stairs, still lit only by the light of the moon and stars. Wonder at the Arabic definition of 'stairs' - in the UK or the US, these death-traps would be cordoned off immediately and all tourists banned from attempting the climb. Frequently wobbly, uneven stones with perilous drops down one side with the added frisson of not being able to see a freaking thing you're doing. Marvel at the two mountain goat-like Hong Kong boys who skip upwards, nattering animatedly and chain smoking. Draw comfort from the fact that the two Egyptian men behind you are wheezing to the point of hospitalisation. With each step, become convinced that you are travelling further into one of the world's most inaccessible places, and then marvel at happening across a well-stocked shack selling cold drinks, biscuits, refrigerated Snickers bars and a selection of tourist items including Bedouin headscarves and postcards. Feel guilty about not giving Moses more respect, but become gradually more convinced that the ten commandments and the burning bush were probably heat- and altitude-induced hallucinations.
5. Reach the summit and breathe in the awesome view for several consecutive seconds, before realising that your sweat-soaked T-shirt and wet hair is combining with the nippy summit air to provide ideal conditions for rare Egyptian hypothermia. Rent a musty camel blanket from a trusty local and wrap it around yourself gratefully as though it is a mink stole. Despair as you realise that sunrise is still an hour or so away and that the possibility of dying of cold atop Mount Sinai is becoming more distinct. Lose the feeling in your fingers.
6. Remember handy snack-pack of fig rolls among possessions and wolf down with metaphorical relish. Putting actual relish on fig rolls is a mistake.
7. 5.45am. Watch the sunrise. Take a billion incredible photographs and allow yourself to be convinced that the quantity of your pictures will ensure that you have the greatest selection of Sinai sunrise photos ever taken, better even thanthose of the man behind you who has brought up an impressively gargantuan tripod and a selection of paparazzi-style lenses to capture the moment.
8. After a brief tussle with the blanket man and, perhaps, a row with Mohammed - mine started with me slipping over near one of the cafes and him saying if I'd been holding his hand it wouldn't have happened, and me trying to point out that the top of a rocky mountain isn't the best place to start a fight with me if he knows what's good for him - begin the descent, choosing with the rest of Group Ramses to take the Difficult Route down the stairs - that's the 750 we climbed, but then a further 3000 steps rather than the winding 7km pathway.
9. Reach the bottom an hour later, in beating sunlight, wondering if you will ever walk again, but somehow muster the energy to traipse obediently around St Katherine's Monastery. Then buy an ice-cold Diet Coke and a refrigerated Snickers bar, the latter almost certainly as a result of subliminal messaging, and consume both like a crazed American dieter who's fallen off the wagon in Disneyworld. Climb back in the minibus and collapse.
That was Friday night and Saturday morning. Since then I've been walking a little like a cowgirl, not aided by the fact that yesterday evening I went riding at sunset, galloping up into the desert behind my hotel and loving the smell of hot horse. The evening would have been nigh-on perfect, were it not for the tiny, tiny ginger kitten who'd scampered up to me as I walked along the beach over to the stables, shouting its little head off. I tried to give it some water but it was slightly hysterical and wouldn't concentrate, so then I took its picture and tried to walk off, but the little thing followed me like a puppy for about ten minutes. I was striding pretty fast, trying not to get emotionally attached, but every time I looked behind me, there it was, bounding along on its tiny ginger legs, its tiny ginger tail poking straight up behind it. Finally we came across a group of children. 'Brilliant,' I thought, 'here is the solution to my problems. These charming street urchins will delight in the little creature and will surely share some of their local produce with it. I need worry no longer.' My sense of well-being lasted for a few seconds, until a fat Bedouin child with wild hair threw a tennis-ball sized rock at the kitten, and narrowly missed. I reprimanded her pointlessly, knowing that adorable ginger kittens are ten a penny and profoundly unwanted, and that I was singularly unable to rescue it myself. Steeling myself and feeling like a bitch, I walked on. And I never saw the little kitten again.I don't know, it's a funny place, this. As a relaxing holiday destination, it's perfect. The weather has been unrelentingly wonderful: I've seen one cloud in the ten days I've been here, and even that was a pathetic attempt which came nowhere near the sun and in fact served only to emphasise the depth of the blue surrounding it. The people are friendly. The yoga has been great. The coral has been unforgettable. The hotel, especially the pool, is truly fantastic. Without hesitation, I am thrilled to have been here and feel like one lucky bunny. But would I return? I doubt it. Although Egyptian cities are apparently far more cosmopolitan, this is a Bedouin area. I have seen around ten women in all the time I've been here. All the workers in my hotel, all the workers in every restaurant, cafe, internet shop, dive centre - they're all men. It's simply not right. Obviously their treatment of animals leaves something to be desired. There is a lot of rubbish about - if you like your beaches clean, your tap water purified and/or your sewage systems efficient, stay well away. And the corruption is laughable (as long as you don't live here, when it's perhaps a little less hilarious): the police system makes Sicily look like a Quaker commune. Police arbitrarily decide laws on a week-by-week basis, enforcing them entirely at random and extracting huge fines from anyone who doesn't comply, regardless of whether or not they were aware that they were contravening any rule. I couldn't live here if you paid me. And what's brilliant is, in an instance of wonderful temporal harmony, I'm coming home tomorrow.
I had a gorgeous final full day today, snorkeling round the seemingly-bottomless Blue Hole and taking endless photos that will never look good when I get home. Then I sunbathed by the pool and burned my left knee. Now I'm going to check my emails, jump in the back of a pickup and head back to the hotel to pack. I think I've been bitten. Growl.
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