St. Catharine's Monastery and Nuweiba

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This morning we woke up at a decent hour and made our way to St. Catherine's cathedral at the base of Mt. Sinai. Yesterday we walked right past the cathedral on out way to the summit, but visitors are only allowed in between the hours of 9:00 am and 12:00 noon.

We arrived at the cathedral around 9:30 am, so it was already packed. On out way into the cathedral, two people from our group were denied entry because their shorts didn't fully cover their knees: Mike and Mark. Luckily, two of the girls kindly donated sarongs to the cause and after donning them, Mike and Mark were allowed inside the Monastery's walls. 

The monastery is actually quite small and the visitor area is only a small portion of that. We were able to enter the church and there are many artifacts within it's walls: the main entry doors are from the 6th century and there was a bronze candelabra from the 12th-13th century. 

Also inside the monastery we were able to see what is apparently an ancestor of the Burning Bush and Moses' well. They say that Moses' well still has water in it, but all we have to go on is faith because the top of the well is boarded up...

After the monastery we hopped in the bus and made the hour-and-a-half trip to Nuweiba. We stayed at a wonderful little beach resort and spent the afternoon snorkeling, swimming and relaxing in the sun. The resort had ice cold beer, which is a bit hard to come by in Egypt and wonderful fruit cocktails. 

Elysia wasn't feeling all that well so she only had soup for dinner. Mike had an interesting dish called Bamia, which is basically chopped up Okra mixed with tomato sauce and served over rice... Delicious. 

The Mosquitos came out in full force at dark, so everyone scampered off to bed early; besides after a couple weeks of hardcore traveling, we could all use a little rest. 

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