it's not so difficult to climb Mount Sinai if you have help

That was where we were heading right up to the top

Hadi helped us up there

Abdul and friend

It was our second day there when we nearly all went up to the summit of Mount Sinai.  There were some intrepid walkers who did the whole thing on foot and some who took a camel's help to get to the halfway station.  You have to be quite intrepid to get on the camel.  Some of the camels are old hands and aren't that pleased to have another day clambering up the rocky path with an old Granny on the top. The camel who got me was an old boy called Abdul and he definitely wasn't pleased to be on this trip.  It is quite difficult to get mounted both for the camel and the Granny.  The camel has to be sat down and the Granny has to get her leg right over the top of the camel who, even lying down is quite a large lump of camel.  My Bedouin helper called a friend and somehow hauled me over the top so I was sitting astride Abdul and then Abdul got up, back legs first which meant that I was dangerously close to his head and then once the back legs were up, they were followed by the front ones.  Off we went, up and up the rocky path criss crossing the mountain so that if you looked above you you could see the line of camels on the horizon ahead with your friends on top.  Abdul wasn't up for speeding unless he suddenly thought he could do an overtake on a precipice!  My Bedouin helper was an extra brought in as there were so many of us and he was a bit fed up with Abdul too, he kept having a little sneaky slap of  him and shouting Hari Hari which must mean Get a move on Abdul.  The camel riders were up to the half way station in about an hour and a half and the walkers who could be seen below took about two and half hours.  We stopped for tea and photos in a tea stop.  Nice hot sweet Bedouin tea which slipped down easily.  Then onward and upward and it really was upward.  Upward of 750 steps and some steep and some less so.  We passed many places where Moses had been and probably Elijah too and we were certainly following in the footsteps of monks and hermits and pilgrims as well as intrepid climbing tourists.  Some people climb the mountain in the early early hours to catch the dawn at the top but we were daytime climbers and reached the top by about midday.  There is a chapel which was closed, a relatively newly built one and a mosque also closed but there is a square space where there is nothing but views and that is where you get a glimpse of the eternal mountain which has seen the prophets, saints and others come and go.  Here we were quiet.  Then we took our way back down with a friendly Bedouin who took we Grannies by the arm and kindly chatted as we scrabbled a bit down the high and lower rocky steps.  Some of us needed the help as our older legs were unused to the up and down-ness of Holy Mountain climbing with high altitude as well as high holiness.  Father Justin had told us about the Ladder of Divine Ascent and then Father Nilus had told us about how the souls of the monks and maybe everybody else when their souls leave their bodies, meet two angels, the first one is a guardian angel and the second one is the receiving angel.  We had angels, first Hadi and Josh from Wind, Sand and Stars.  We had the Bedouin who linked arms with us and the Bedouin who gave us lunch and sweet tea.  We had had the stories of Moses and Elijah to inspire us when we flagged and each other to laugh with when faced with new challenges. Those were our modern day angels!

Abdul the unwilling.  And by the way, there are about 6 layers of clothing under that coat, it isn't all me!