moses was a poser

so with only two more nights of the joyously laid-back dahab to endure, the decision was made by ashley, micko and leon (dave having roots manuva-d 2 rastas-electric boogaloo; i dunno the real name, ask dave) to climb a mountain; in the dark, wee hours of the early morning; for a laugh.
after nana-naps and the best pizza in egypt were taken care of, we boarded the van at 11pm, keen for the 2 hour hoik up 2 sinai. enroute everyone else in the darkened, speeding van looked like they were getting at least the most primitive forms of sleep except me (relegated to cushion duty), but micko assures me he got none so i feel better.
after a near escape of the 50% "baksheesh" (tip) the driver was asking just 2 walk 5 metres and buy our tickets 4 us, we entered via st catherines monastery.
walking through at night, surrounded by (a fuckload of) tourist types (ooh, ain't we so superior) the consensus was to sans the monastery and head straight up the the large rock form that carries the name of the tour.
the first 100 metres of the walk was well eerie. imagine a stretch of very dark, rocky terrain(i believe the partly full moon was blotted by the big hill) silent but for the gentle breeze, with large white boulders piled along either side of the walkway. now imagine that, as yr eyes accustomise it gradually dawns on u that the huge white boulders stretching out 10 across on either side and off ahead into darkness are all enormous, dead silent...afghan camels (two humps, dahlings)! holy shit! anyone seen "the birds" here? well lemme tell u, seagulls got nothing on ships of the desert! (is a lot of camels an armada?) the bedouin, not having realised we're part of the oncoming horde, haven't given the game away with rapid fire chants of "camel ride?! camel ride?!", so we got the full benefit of their surprise tactics. in retrospect, in can't believe we couldn't SMELL that mass of camels, but we were still a little sleepy, i guess.
to save u the boredom of a blow by blow retelling of the ascent (and cos i just realised micko's stolen my thunder and added it to his last blog entry), lemme just say that climbing up a mountain in the dark with a few friends is less easy and more enjoyable than climbing down a mountain in the early daylight surrounded by mongoloid tourists (no offense to genghis and co). those big rocks sure are pretty tho...

it was definitely the highest, and the coldest i've ever been up on top (that xmas-style red nose aın't from 2 much eggnog). we got there before the hordes and paid a bedouin too much for very neccesary mattress and blanket action. the great globby mass of the milky way was splayedacross the heavens for our teeth-chattering enjoyment. then we settled in to wait for sunrise, killing time by relating stories each of us knew about u, gentle reader; how u were our favourite and always managed 2 work such magic through yr evryday life...ahhh.

by the time sunrise came the three of us were well fucking chilled and suddenly surrounded by a seething mass of goof. a small body of lunatics off to our right suddenly burst forth with the speaking-in-tongues thing that is so much a hallmark of their illness. an angular, goateed white man (u know the type - look! there he is in the hood!) burst into semi-operatic singing in a language unknown 2 me (other than the occasional hallelujah). ash shushed me several times when i tried to add my own barney gumble style version of "modern major general" to the mix. not to be outdone, a japanese man surrounded by his countryfolk up on the outlook took up the amateur-pavarotti gauntlet with his own soliloquoy. for the 20 mins previous this fella had been making regular gruff, bruce-lee-movie type grunts that seemed (to my expert eyes) to be directed towards making the sun come up beyond the horizon. the rest of us were all very grateful for his moses-like (mosaic?) effort because, sure enough, the cute little pink ball u can see in micko's previous post began its adorable ascent.
i guess when u go somewhere that most other peoplego to because of who was (supposedly) there rather than what is now there u have to expect a little divergence of philosophies. ash, micko and i were philisophically entwined in our agreement that our fingers and toes had passed on, it was too cold and crowded and time to go.
the lazy saunter back down (after we'd put some distance up and got a little blood back into yon extremities) was very akin to the pleasantly washed out feeling of having mixed intoxicants adeptly the previous evening and stayed up til dawn with charming company. pleasant.
and now home 2 bed please driver...