galillee, egypt, and jordan, round 1

its been a while since i've updated, and i have so much to write about!

two weekends ago i spent 4 days in galillee on a class study trip. it was by far the best i have been on, and i love every minute of it. we had the chance to see many places talked about in the gospels, and even got to take a boat from one side of the sea of galillee to capernaum on the other side.

we stayed at a resorty place, right on the water, that was directly across from tiberius. on a clear night you could see all the lights from tiberius. it was so beautiful.

we got back from that trip at about 6 sunday night, ate dinner, showered, and did laundry. the next week was spring break, and i and 4 of my friends had plans to leave the college at 6 the next morning. after packing and getting a couple hours of sleep we all met and started off towards our bus, which was on the other side of jerusalem, at around 6:15. the bus was scheduled to leave at 7:15, so halfway through the walk, we decided to get taxis, since we wouldnt have enough time to walk to the other side of the city. after settling on a decent pice (that was later refused by one of the taxi drivers, who demanded more) we got to the bus on time. it took about four hours to get to eilat.

once in eilat, we stopped and ate lunch by the red sea, and went for a quick swim. then we took a bus maybe 20 minutes to the border crossing, and walked through to taba, egypt. we then hired a taxi for the next three days. the first day, we went and stayed at a place aptly named paradise beach, near nweba. this place was beautiful, and we were almost the only people there. we stayed in grass huts on the beach for about 2 dollars that night, and ate amazing food, and went snorkeling and swimming. that night they gave us bedouin tea and something from south africa that tasted like irish cream, and played drums by the fire.

the next day, our taxi driver, abrahim, drove us to st. catherine's at mt. sinai. after arguing for about an hour about whether or not we needed to pay for a guide to help us to the top (we thought we didnt, but apparently its "illegal" not to), the five of us hired a guide along with two men from malta, and a guy named sasha from russia. our group soon split into the fit ones, who went up with the guide, and the slow ones, (myself included) who saw the guide for all of the first fifteen minutes of an almost three hour climb.

when we finally got to the top, it was just before sunset, so we found a good place to set up camp, and broke out the food! we ate while we watched the sunset. after a couple hours we went to bed, most of us out under the stars. i have never seen so many stars! it was unbelievable. we had been told it could get pretty cold, so in addition to our sleeping bags, most of us rented mats and blankets from the bedouins. at about midnight, the first other group arrived at the top, and from then on there is a new person or group getting to the top every hour or so. some of them start to take pictures of us.

we woke at about 4 with the moon still rising, but a hint of pink on the horizon. the top of sinai is full now, with hundreds of people with their camera's out, waiting to see the sun. we can see where it will rise from our sleeping bags, so we don't move. as time goes on, the sun gets higher, and people start snapping pictures, with someone every so often turning around to take a picture of us. later we stood and realized why. we were a mess! i'll post pictures later, but we look like flood victims or something! you can see a short video of that morning here.

after hiking back down, abrahim drives us to dahab. we spend most of the rest of the week there. unfortunatley, i have to go, but i will continue with stories from dahab, and from jordan (where i am going tomorrow with a class) at some other time. bye!