April 19, 2018 – Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

Nestled on a promontory on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt’s seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is often called the “City of Peace” for the number of international peace conferences held here. Its location where major bodies of water meet transformed it from a modest fishing village into a major port. With turquoise waters and long sand beaches, “Sharm,” as it known by locals, is renowned for its unrivalled scuba diving among vibrant coral, dramatic rock formations and underwater cliffs. The surrounding desert, too, though less colorful, exudes its own stark beauty and ancient mystery.

We are now in the Asia part of Egypt, rather than Africa. This town was just a sleepy fishing village until the Israel war in 1967. The Israel’s put a light on it by building a port here and then building a Hilton Hotel as a resort. When the war ended and in the Peace treaty it became the spoils of war for the Egyptians. They also bought the Hilton and decided to continue this as a resort. They left two hotels, a diving center and a lot more to the Egyptians. The Egyptians were able to get Arab investors to come and invest in the area. At that time you could buy 1 square meter of land for 1 Egyptian pound and today 1 square meter cost 50,000-70,000 Egyptian pounds.

Where we are going today is north in the Sanai Peninsula to St. Catherine’s Monastery. The peninsula is partitioned into three zones under conditions of the peace treaty. Zone A, which is the left-hand side, facing Egypt in Africa, Egyptians can have their army stationed. Zone B, which is in the middle of the peninsula, there can be no more than 2,000 Egyptian troops and Zone C, which borders Israel, can only be patrolled by Egyptian police. In the Sanai there are also 20,000 multinational troops.

We came into port very early as our tour met at 5:45 AM. Here are a couple of early morning pictures.

St. Catherine’s Monastery was built between 548 and 565, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site lies at the foot of Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. In the 4^th century, the Byzantine Empress Helena erected a chapel here next to what is believed to be the same Burning Bush from which God spoke to Moses. She dedicated the chapel to the martyr St. Catherine. In the 6^th century, Emperor Justinian ordered the building of a fortified monastery here.

On the way there it was more desert, but different than what we had seen the day before.

The ride to the monastery was about four hours. We not only had an armed guard on the bus, but we had a convoy of busses that had armed guards in front and behind us. As before, we had many checkpoints to go through. Unlike before, we could not take any pictures of the checkpoints or the guards. But, at the last checkpoint, we thought it was the entrance to St. Catherine’s, so we have a couple of pictures. Notice the one with the crossing gate; there is someone in that stone thing pulling a string to bring the gate up and down.

When you get there the bus parks in a parking lot where there are some shops. Here are some pictures from the parking lot. From there they drive you up to St. Catherine’s in vans or cars.

St. Catherine’s is the smallest diocese in the world and at the same time the oldest Christian monastery still in existence in the world and houses the richest collection of icons and precious manuscripts. It is located at an altitude of 1570 meters, at the end of a narrow valley, which appears even tinier by the high mountains rising on either side.  The area around it is roughly an irregular quadrangle of about 85x74 meters, and the thickness is as much as 1.65 meters.

Upon entering your first impression is that of entering a medieval village; the buildings are crowded together, each one of a different shape, style and size.

Notice in the last picture above the mosque in the background. Yes, there is a mosque on the monastery property. They said there were two stories why it is there. One is that when the Muslims were coming to attack the church, they built the mosque so they would not destroy the monastery. The other story is that the Arabs built the mosque.

Various wells provide water for the monastery. The most important one is the famous Bit Musa, or Moses’ well. Tradition has it that is was here that Moses me Jethro’s daughters, the oldest of whom, Zipporah, who became his wife.

We were able to go into the Church of the Transfiguration, though could not take any pictures inside. The inside, 40x20 meters , has three naves divided by twelve monolithic granite columns, each one representing the twelve months of the year, and is decorated with the icon of the saint venerated during that month. Suspended form the wooden ceiling with gold stars on a green background are some fifty lamps and candelabra, most of which are adorned with ostrich eggs. The Transfiguration of Christ is painted on the ceiling.

There is a Chapel of the Burning Bush, but the monks did not let us enter there today. The altar is said to rise on the spot in which it is said that the bush had its roots. The bush was then transplanted outside, in order to permit erection of the altar over the roots. This is the place where according to tradition, Moses saw the burning bus.

The library of St. Catherine is second only in importance to the Vatican library for the number of rarity of the volumes held. In it are preserved more than 6,000 manuscripts and volumes, most of them in Greek and the rest in more than ten languages.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but it was amazing to see all of the manuscripts and items in there.

From here we walked back down to the bus instead of taking the van. It was a very pleasant walk with the temperature being in the 80’s. We were then handed a box lunch and off we went back to the ship. On the way our escort in the front pulled over and one of the guards in the back was having water poured over his head. I remember this from the day before, but he revived and they caught back up with us. Here are a couple of pictures from the ride back.

Tomorrow we are going up the Suez Canal, during the day this time, and the next day we are docked in Alexandria, Egypt, on the Mediterranean. We have a 12 hour tour into Cairo to see the pyramids.