Mount Sinai and Dahab

Last weekend the program went to Mount Sinai and Dahab. It was a long bus ride to Sinai (7 hours through the night), but climbing Sinai to see the sunrise was an amazing experience. We saw the burning bush at St. Katherine's Monastery...complete with fire extinguisher! It was an incredibly long day, but Dahab was beautiful. It's a resort town that caters to backpackers and is on the Gulf of Aquaba (the Red Sea). From the beach, we could see the shoreline of Saudi Arabia, and at night, we could see lights from one of the towns.

While we were at Dahab, we also went snorkeling at a place called The Blue Hole, which is supposedly only second to the snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. The reef was pretty sweet and I saw some cool fist -- it was also weird to see scuba divers beneath me... Dahab itself is a pretty relaxed place. We got to swim and eat, swim and eat, and swim and eat some more. People were saying that it would be a good place for a honeymoon, and I think I would have to agree.

Today we had Arabic again (Yes, class on a Sunday. Church is on Fridays.) and we also heard from Hossam Bagehat who works for a human rights group based in Cairo. What he had to say was really interesting and I'm looking forward to being able to hear more on the subject. It's been nice to have a free night, though. So far we've only had one or two...so five of us girls got a taxi and went to McDonald's for internet.

This weekend is the Luxor trip. Hopefully all will go well!