Pilgrim's Path

St. Catherine—It's early afternoon and I'm sitting alone on a sheltered stone terrace in the shadow of the Sinai Mountains, at the guesthouse of the St. Catherine monks who have lived here since the 4th century. Seven ratty cats are driving me crazy trying to steal my tea and butter biscuits. The library I've come to visit is closed and I have nothing to do until dinner.

St. Catherine is a government protectorate that includes this Greek Orthodox monastery, several ancient shrines and mosques, miles of canyons and mountains, and the shrine to Moses' burning bush and Mt. Sinai itself. Tourists and pilgrims come here to walk the ancient path and climb the mountain (after paying about $3 to get into the protectorate.) But no vehicles are allowed beyond that last police checkpoint. My Big Red Bag bearing new guidebooks and tons of tourist trash is mighty heavy as I lean into my mile-long climb to the monastery.

I'm still swatting cats away when the first wave of pilgrims returns from their day's walk. There are mobs of them of all nationalities and I wonder where they're all going to sleep. It's not until two days later that I'll note the rows of giant tour buses lined up at the gate. I'm guessing they head back to civilization after their trek.

Some of the pilgrims who took camels into the steep cliffs look none the worse for wear. While the camels lie about as camels do, the boys who care for them play football in the dust. The bells chime for afternoon prayer and I hear the monks chanting from behind the 9-foot-thick fortress wall built in the 6th century by Emperor Justinian. The voices moan that tuneless, minor-key Orthodox stuff that no one raised on Bach and Handel in church can stand.

It still doesn't make sense to me that these monks are Greek Orthodox, an Eastern rite, when Egyptian Orthodox are Copts, an Oriental rite. All the monks here speak Greek and only Greeks are allowed to join the order, while the Copts, all Egyptians, follow a liturgy in a language closely related to that of the pharaohs. This monastery chose sides during the Byzantine era and hasn't moved an inch ever since. The library, containing many ancient texts, is considered next to the Vatican's to be the most extensive and priceless in the world.

The next group of pilgrims includes about a dozen Orthodox priests whose tall staffs and long, black, dusty robes indicate that they walked. None of them looks like he's had a bath in this millennium, much less a shave. One of them is barefoot and has completely black toenails. Even the Fisherman wore shoes.

That night at dinner they enjoy several bottles of the local Omar Kayam wine. I find out the next morning at 3:30 a.m. after I crash their service that they're not monks from this monastery, they're Serbian Orthodox and the people they're with are their flock.

Having missed the group launching early for the sunrise climb, I see women dressed for church and decide to follow them. Through a gate and around some passages we go 'till we get to a heavy wooden door. Inside is a small chapel that looks original to the monastery. I've never been in an Eastern Orthodox church and I swing around 360 degrees gaping at all the brass, censers, and icons. The light is all by oil lamps and casts a warm, yellow glow.

I sneak out when it looks like everybody's about to do something that I don't know how to do. At 3:45 a.m. the bells chime from the large, main church. The resident monks pray a lot—first from 4-7:30 a.m. and again from 5-7 p.m.

At breakfast I meet two Danes on a tour of Egypt's many Christian holy places, including the route the Holy Family took on their flight into Egypt. They both paint icons for a living, and one woman gives me a print of one of her paintings. They tip me off about how to get into the main church, more ancient and foreign than anything I've ever seen.

The next morning when I leave the church's bookstore it's about 9 a.m. and hordes of the pilgrims who got up at 2 a.m. to climb Mt. Sinai for the sunrise are returning. There seem to be hundreds of them today, speaking every language on the planet. I want to climb the mountain but I'm not sure how to do it since I have no interest in walking in the dark—either for sunrise or sunset—much less with all these people.

Just then a Bedouin man asks me if I want to climb today. I like his face and the modest way he approaches me, with a courtly nod of the head as so many Bedouin do. It helps too that his English is very good, since practically no one at the monastery understands a thing I say. With the recent kidnapping of American women here in my mind, we negotiate terms and we're on our way.

I like Suileman's company immensely and he is an excellent guide, pointing out the stone hermitages of the mountain monks high on the ridges that would have been invisible to me. He is a member of the Jebaliya tribe, descendants of the people who have served this monastery since the 6th century when Emperor Justinian imported 200 families from Anatolia and Alexandria for the purpose. After the Arab conquest they eventually converted to Islam, but they retained many Christian observances unique to them. They retain also special privileges at and around the monastery, where they live, and where our paths cross.

The occupants of these hermitages are spiritual descendants of the Christian ascetics, who came here in the first centuries after Christ to meditate, pray, and escape Roman persecution. With the legendary Mt. Sinai above them and the shrine of Moses' burning bush at their feet, they grew more numerous until St. Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, built them a church. Three hundred years later Justinian built a fortress to enclose the eventual monastery, and in 1,600 years it has been continuously occupied, maintained, and free from attack. Even the prophet Mohammed honored these monks, by offering them his protection and sparing them his taxes. A copy of his decree is in the library.

It is not a two hour climb up the mountain as described to me but three, because I have to stop often to catch my breath. Suileman is very agreeable, saying "slowly, slowly." When we rest he patiently chain-smokes. "Something wrong with the chest?" I can't guess his age within decades. Like all Bedouin he is skinny, leathery, and has teeth as repulsively brown as a camel's. I don't know why until later when I get a load of my own teeth in the first mirror I've seen in weeks: The tea will have to go.

On the way up we pass little shops scrabbled together with stone and straw where treats for pilgrims are sold, but everyone in them is sleeping now because most of their business came by before dawn. I am immeasurably grateful for not having been part of that horde. The experience I'm getting of the Sinai's vast, richly colored desolation belongs just to Suileman and me.

At the top there are two tiny chapels—one Christian and one Muslim—because Moses is revered by both religions. It occurs to me that this valley has been a model of religious toleration and mutual respect for centuries and could teach the world outside a thing or two.

There are blankets strewn about haphazardly for the people who climb and stay overnight, but they leave their trash and cigarette butts everywhere and I think about the hereafter they're going to get.

On the way down my legs are shaking and Suileman sticks out a gentlemanly elbow to help steady my step. We could be an English couple out for a garden walk, except by now he's carrying about half my weight, which is twice his.

One of the tea shops is open and we enter it, dark as a cave, for a hot cup on this cold morning. This time of year it's often below freezing on the mountain and covered with snow. The old proprietor—I'll call him Abraham—lives here alone. There are platforms and mattresses for about 12 people if they're stretched out end-to-end, and stacks of extra blankets. I have no idea how he gets his things up the mountain—bottles of pop and water, candy and cookies, etc. "No woman here," he tells me, which I don't doubt. "Woman keep you warm." I tell Sueliman later that I'm sorry Abraham has no wife. Sueliman finds this funny and tells me he has a wife all right—and five children. The wife is none too happy about Abraham's tea shop.

The next day I am eager to leave the monastery because about 3 million Russians who look exactly like potatoes have descended, shoving me away from the coffee pot in the morning and taking my seat at the breakfast table. They pray en masse in the dining hall, crossing themselves backwards and bowing repeatedly and never—not once—smiling. They remind me of my tour guide in the Valley of the Kings who tried to get several Russian tourists from climbing one of the tombs to take pictures. They completely ignored him, even after several attempts, and without the usual tourist police there was nothing he could do. Later, in Dahab, I was talking about Bob Marley to a restaurant attendant I'd come to know and mentioned everybody's favorite song, "No Woman, No Cry." He smiled and leaned close: "Here? We say 'No Russian, no cry.'"

The next morning with Suileman's help I find and see the icon gallery, which despite my doubts turns out to be a large collection of treasures worthy of a traveling exhibit. Once more we get to experience it all alone.

Besides the very old icons, displayed in a labyrinth of stone caverns like the old wine cellars of France, there are room after room of silver and gold artifacts dating back many centuries that were gifts of the czars. But it's the books I've come to see and didn't expect to find here. Hebrew, Greek—all hand-lettered in original codices. I imagine the hours of work these took to produce, the monks laboring by oil lamp between hours of prayer. There's even a copy of Homer with a hand-stamped gold cover.

I am to go today to a mountain eco-lodge for three days, but change my mind after meeting its proprietor, Sheikh Mousa, who after tea I don't want tells me I'll have to hire a Jeep for 150 EGP to get there, pay about twice what I've been spending to stay there, and pretty much be dependent on him to get back to "civilization" in the village of St. Catherine, which is just a few stone Bedouin houses and a mosque. I do love the silence and the beauty, but there are no other guests and once the sun goes down at 6 p.m. there's absolutely nothing to do.

I decide to stay the night in his Bedouin Camp near the village, which has a variety of accommodations from a mattress on the ground to a very comfortable suite with a full bathroom. I spend the rest of the day reading the last few hundred pages of the Koran that I've committed to, and recovering from what could either have been too many dates yesterday or a touch of Pharaoh's Revenge.

Sheikh Mousa tells me there's a bus to Cairo at 6 a.m. (50 EGP for a 6-hour-trip!), so I walk down to the bus stop to make sure I know the way. The posted schedule shows Cairo crossed out. Well, I've been lucky so far. I go back to my room committed to giving it a go.

Confusing the man at the camp's reception desk, I pay for my room and try to express that I will be leaving before he's on duty in the morning and could he leave the gate unlocked? I have no confidence that he understands a word I say, but he does indeed leave the gate unlocked.

By Microbus with 30 Soldiers
The next morning I walk down to the bus stop across from the mosque, where early morning prayers are just ending. Boys leading strings of camels pass me soundlessly in the dark. Up ahead I see the shape of a mini-bus parked by the mosque, and out pops a man I'd seen the day before who'd asked me if I was going to Cairo. He hadn't told me that he was the bus driver. I can't believe there's a bus after all, and indeed, it's only 50 pounds!

This van is very posh by Egyptian standards, a brand-new Toyota 12-seater. The driver insists that I take the comfy seat up front, and after some futile protests I comply. At 6 a.m. on the dot we're off.

I feel bad for him because 50 pounds isn't much for me and the two passengers aboard for a 6-hour trip. Silly me. At the first police checkpoint 15 minutes later, about 12 very young soldiers throw their gear on top and clamber aboard. In another 20 minutes at another checkpoint, I swear he squeezes another dozen or so guys in fatigues inside. By now I know the wisdom of his having insisted I sit up front. There are easily three times the number of passengers on board than the trusty van was built to carry. The men are in a merry mood and the driver turns up the music LOUD. He leans over to tell me that these are the good guys—not the loathed military police—and they're off to Cairo for a 10-day holiday.

As the sun comes up the colors change and become more breathtaking around every turn. There is absolutely no one else on the road and I wonder why the driver periodically flashes his lights on and off, punctuating this with a swift sounding of his horn. No one smokes the whole way. I am liking this driver.

After about two hours we reach the shore of the Gulf of Suez to stop for gas, tea, and a smoke. Everyone in the cafe stares at me long and unabashedly. It's good practice for returning to Cairo, where I'm frankly stared at as if I were a giraffe. But a woman in a niquab heading for the Dunn Bros. in Linden Hills would get exactly the same treatment, so I try to be a sport about it.

It takes another two hours to reach the tunnel that will take us under the Suez Canal. I wish I could capture in a picture what it's like to pass right under a giant container ship!

In the meantime traffic has picked up and my calm, polite, unhurried driver starts showing his Egyptian colors. I can't believe he's going to pass a truck going uphill against traffic in a van with a thousand soldiers in it and another one coming straight at us. I am sure we will not make it and seize the dash with both hands. He weaves in front of the passed truck with no room to spare—the other drivers honking and flashing their lights in friendly greeting—but I don't let go of the dash. The driver leans over: "You a little bit afraid?" Everybody thinks this is hilarious.

At the town of Suez he hands the van over to his son, whose English is better but whose driving is worse. He gets a royal charge out of spotting me freak out. "Good driver, yes?" The flatbed trucks we pass bearing the burned-out carcasses of other "good driver" vehicles reassure me, no.

Once we get to Cairo, though, he takes the time to find me a taxi driver who knows the obscure neighborhood where I am going, the guest of my Egyptian-American Friend and his family. (We won't go into the nightmare of actually FINDING that neighborhood: that taxi driver didn't have the first idea where he was going.) But eventually we get home and I enjoy a huge meal from the fish stall across the street and retire—I think—for the evening.

But once my hosts know I'm back in town I am invited to join them for what they insist on calling "lunch," even though it's 7:30 p.m., and so I do. I use their son's computer to catch up on email, where I learn that some Koreans were abducted yesterday by Bedouins on the St. Catherine road (I'm uncharitably pleased because of the trash I know they left on the trail to Mt. Sinai). I also get an email from the US Embassy warning that a general strike and demonstrations have been called for today, February 11, the one-year anniversary of Mubarak's stepping down from power (because nothing has happened in the intervening year, the malcontents say). Americans are advised to stay away from Cairo if possible, or if not, to stay away from downtown—where, of course, the bus station is that I was intending to depart from today. No matter. I'll stay in Cairo another day, take care of some business, and enjoy my Egyptian friends' generous hospitality. Tomorrow is soon enough to continue on my route.

And besides, one of the things you come to love about traveling is that like life, all plans are fleeting.