Exodus from Egypt - the epiblogue

My apologies for not writing a post sooner. I forgot that people were reading the blog and wondering if we ever made it home. We have indeed returned to Canada, and are settling into our home in Toronto. So, I will try to recall our last few days in Egypt.

We did indeed ascend Mount Sinai. We climbed it by the light of the almost full moon, and were there to watch the sunrise from the summit. It was a relatively easy trail, but was occassionally disorienting in the moonlight - no help that our guide ran off without us, so we did the climb solo. If you ever find yourself at Mount Sinai, I'd recommend taking a camel to the top. The summit of this sacred mountain was littered with the garbage of thousands of visitors; everything from blankets and foam pads, used batteries, and dozens of handwritten prayers all discarded on top of the rocky peak. Moses wouldn't be impressed.

After the sunrise, we walked back down the way we came. The famous St.Katherine's monastery at the base of the mountain was closed to tourists for some random feast day that no one had been told about, so that was a bit of a disappointment. No Well of Moses, no Burning Bush. Just a lot of eastern european tour groups who had a videographer in tow to capture every precious moment.

We spent a couple more days in Dahab before hopping onto the bus for Cairo. An uneventful trip, except for the security check when we passed under the Suez Canal. We all had to get off the bus and get our luggage inspected before we could pass underneath. After a long day of looking at a lot of sand, it was great to be back in cosmopolitain Cairo and see the Nile again.

On June 15, we flew back to Montreal, and were greeted by my parents. A few days later we were in Toronto, back where we had started in November 2004. We had successfully circumnavigated the globe.

Before we set out on this journey, I had a couple of goals. The first was to go travelling for 100 days. We arrived back in Canada after 105 days on the road, tired but happy. The second was to travel from Osaka to Bangkok overland - no airplanes. Again we pulled this off.. We missed going to Cambodia and Angkor Wat, but went to Egypt instead - a decent compromise I reckon.