Still bushy-tailed as we set off along a dried river bed.

We recently went on a two day hike to St Paul’s monastery. It was fairly easy going exertion-wise (hey, I could do it!) but the night was horrible. In an attempt to carry as little as possible, I forgot to bring clothes for the night. Then I discovered my sleeping bag wasn’t thick enough for the cool night air (although, perhaps not having my usual camping pj’s was part of that) and then the new camping mats were, well, bloody useless, leaving me pockmarked with bruises the following morning.

Winding up the mountain

But you know, I’m a tough cookie and the discomfort of the night was soon overcome by the walk itself. Being away from crowds of people and the awful smog that has been hanging over the city during recent weeks to walk on clean earth was refreshing.

The last section of the walk brought us to a spot where the Red Sea could be seen in the distance. As great as it is to see where the mountains end and the sand begins, all I wanted to do was jump in!

Finally we arrived at the monastery. It is lucky enough to have a huge new church nearing completion.

New church

Apparently the monks have been disturbed by the numbers of visitors and have decided to move up the mountain. I’m assuming that a bit of Divine intervention is stopping their new building from falling down.

The monks’ home.

One of the lovely things about having visitors is that you have an excuse for touristy trips. In fact, they’re usually not so much fun without the visitors. Right now, Big Mama and Lil’ Bro are visiting. Having visited the pyramids, Coptic Cairo, Islamic Cairo, the museum and various other tourist ‘musts’ multiple times, we decided to take them to the desert.

First stop, the Black Desert. It lies just south of Bahareya oasis (there are numerous spellings of the oasis if you google it).

It’s kind of odd and not being a geologist, or someone who remembers the geological highlights explained by a geologist (more than once..), all I can tell you is that it’s got a lot of black rock. Rather impressive really, though, I think.