230808-240808 Saint Katherine to Red Sea

230808 – Saint Katherine to the Red Sea

After a suitable sleep, we ran through our morning routine and left for a long day ahead. Breakfast was a buffet, Pancakes were on offer along with a chocolate fountain. The norm here has wild deviances, there have been a few breakfasts that have involved softdrink. I would murder for a real coffee.

Those of us who had previously suffered “Nasty-butt” stocked up on various medicines while a pharmacy was at had. I took advantage of the price to buy some Cipro at about 18EGP (about $3.50AU). I'm still blown away by the approach to medicine in this part of the world, you're just as likely to go to a pharmacist for a diagnosis as a doctor! “Here, use this” :p

We got to the Monastery of Saint Katherine and toured the grounds. Emam gave us a very brief rundown of the history and various points of significance. Saint Katherine Monastery is the longest active monastery in the region (or possibly the Middle East). It has been a religious centre since about the 6th centuary and there were monks and priests wandering around while we were there. It is quite a bit larger than the original grounds. It has the largest collection of historical religious texts, second only to the Vatican Library.

The legend is that Katherine was a roman nobel who was very well educated. She converted from Pagan to Christian, upon which the King sent a great many scholars (12 or 30, I can't remember) to argue with her and change her back to the state religion. Katherine converted all of the scholars to being Christian, which resulted in the King executing them. Katherine was sentenced to wheel torture and death, but when she touched the wheel with her finger it broke apart. Hence, she was beheaded. The legend continued that her body was transported by God to the top of Mount Saint Katherine (the highest mountain in the region) and was miraculously preserved. We went through the main chapel and saw what was meant to be the finger bone of Saint Katherine. It was impressively large, I thought it looked more like part of the elbow joint, Nick was undecided.

After the main chapel, we saw what legend said was the burning bush through which God spoke to Moses. The species only grows in this part of the world and Emam said something along the lines of “X-rays of it are lit up, but it will not burn”.
A couple of us went through the museum for 20EGP, there were a lot of impressive texts. Many of the books and artifacts are absolutely spectacular. There is the original letter from Napolean Bonapart, giving the monastery protection, as well as two facsiimilies of the letter written by the Prophet Mohammad saying the same.
There was also part of a copy of the “Sianaticus Codice”. Only 50 copies of this document were ever produced. One was “borrowed” by a european scholar under the guise of getting it published. Instead, the mongrel gave it as a gift to the Russian royalty. The monks have been asking for the stolen documents to be returned for the last few hundred years.
The pages that I saw were over 1,500 years old.

On the way out, we saw the Chapel of Skulls. This is where the bones of all of the monks who lived in the Monastery remain. There was an over-abundance of rude German tourists who ruined this part. They seemed to think that losing the war means that they can jump queues and push everyone around, jamming video cameras into places where it is not entirely appropriate and many of the younger women wearing atire that would be more suited to a strip-club.
I hope they got an eduring case of “Nasty-Butt” to take home with them. Selfish mongrels.

After toilets and stocking up on water and souveniers, we were back on the bus and heading for the Red Sea. There was no convoy for this part of the trip, but check points were extremely frequent. Also, we had a Tourism Policeman in a cheap suit with a machine-gun under his jacket and the various bulges that spoke of either a very poor diet or body armour. Emam told us at the end of the trip that he'd used his position to score a free trip with us, she was pretty cross that he'd imposed on the already cramped mini-van.

Arriving at the beach, we were greated with welcoming drinks and allocated a hut per person or couple. The grounds and scienery was spectacular. Pristine smooth sand (which they tend to every morning to remove foot-print), the main building had low tables and cushions everywhere, there was a pool table for those suitably inclined and the menu was reasonably varied while modestly priced. A pad was passed around for alcohol orders, with Fraser and Nick putting impressive numbers in each column.

Once the logistics and dumping of packs had been taken care of, we all settled in for some hard-core relaxing. Many people read or snoozed on the couches, a couple went for a walk or a paddle. At 430PM about 6 of us went snorkelling with the owner.

We had to walk about 300M down the coast and then out into the water about the same in order to skirt the reef. The water was incredibly shallow and was VERY warm for the top 6 inches no matter how deep it was below you. The only goggles and fins that would fit me were both damaged and difficult to work with but that was to be expected.

WOW

The aquatic life in this area is astounding. During the 30 minutes of snorkelling, we'd seen stone-fish as bit as a foot-ball. About 3-4 massive Lion Fish with their plumage flying through the water, swan through constellations of small blue fish that looked like Tetras. The coral was bright, multicoloured and prolific. I saw far too many sea urchins, spiny parapets fending off the breathing world. I hope the urchins were indigenous and not feasting on the coral, I've heard of the problems on the Great Barrier Reef...

With a yelp that being under water didn't dampen, tragedy struck. British Sarah had gotten a little too close to the coral and scraped her back and arm against the colourful aquatic resident. One of the american guys said they saw a portion break off, so it was definitely coral that caused the injury. Almost in tears with agony, Sarah refused to cut the swim short and go to shore, the guide took that at face value and we continued on for the last 10 minutes. Sarah was doing a good job at masking the pain as we all, much more cautiosly, paddled less than 6 inches above our new foe-with-vibrant-fronds until it was suitable to stand and walk the rest of the way in.

Back on shore, Sarah thought I was being a jerk when I said she should put vinegar on her wounds (or have someone pee on them). By now they had come up in hives and were bright red. She later conceded to have a warm to hot shower, but “almost scalding water” was out of the question.
This AMAZED me, Sarah had an Advanced Open Water SCUBA licence, Nick and Rachel both had Open Water SCUBA tickets.. but everyone looked confused at the idea of heat or acidity to treat the coral stings, which is what I'd been taught for aquatic injuries. I think I must have explained it about two or three times before Sarah went and had a shower, which she said helped dramatically.
The hives were still angry and red, Nick suggested an antihistame and pain killers. Sarah was still being strangely resistant, much of which would remain for the rest of the trip.

Dramas aside, we rest of the evening was pleasant enough. The drinks arrived and we all shared pizzas and beers. Fraser had started on his merry way to being drunk and I quizzed out Emam on some different aspects of local culture and customs. As usual, religious discussion was in the fore-front.

When the plates were cleared away and most of the bottles were half-empty, we all made our way back to our huts. A lot of the people shifted their mattresses outside to escape the heat, but one look at the size of the local cockroaches had me retreating under the mosquito net.


240808 – Red Sea

By the time I'd surfaced, Nick and Rachel had left for their SCUBA adventure up the coast, the breakfast menu was on its last legs and Sarah had started a follow up inspection of her coral injuries. She'd started dosing herself with anithistames and Aloe to try and settle it down, but it was still looking pretty nasty.
Breakfast and chilling out seemed to be the norm for what remained of the morning. Philosophical and ecconomic debate seemed to be order of the day. Lunch arrived with what remained of the drinks from last night, Nick and Rachels return also turned interest to another “drinks list”.

I would have liked to have gone snorkelling again today, but the lack of suitable equipment wieghed in with how comforable everyone felt after lunch and afternoon drinks. As the hours dwindled into twilight, the lights came on, tables came out and dinner became the topic of interest. Drinks stretched into the night.
When the generator was switched off, I slept out on a beach chair until the moon was as bright as daylight. Wandering back to my hut, the night was overly warm and sleep was quick to follow.