MT. SINAI: As an expatriate living in Cairo, one occasionally abandons oneself to the temptations of brazen tourism. Thus I found myself atop Gabel Mousa (also known as Mt. Sinai) with my wife and my visiting sister and father. Once we arrived at the mountain’s peak, we spent 108 minutes drinking deeply of the cross-cultural cocktail of pilgrimage, piety, tourism, and consumption. We spent our 108 minutes at the apex after a quiet, peaceful hike up the back of the mountain, having not encountered a single person. On the walk up, the stars were as numerous as I had ever seen, but as we neared the summit, we encountered a galaxy of different sort: a gaggle of tourist flashlights swarming before us. We included ourselves then among the tourgrims as we passed the kiosks selling chocolate bars and 15LE tea, looking like a crowd of dog-tired miners. We cursed under our breath. The first 15 minutes of our 108 were spent on the final ascending steps, moving at a snail’s pace because of the crowd, elbowing by the elderly. Finally claiming a space for ourselves atop a rock next to the church at the top, we passed around a few fuul sudani (peanut) bars and waited for the sunrise to arrest our attention. In anticipation, there was no lack of stimulus. The peak that supposedly once witnessed the voice of God, for us, was steeped in a din of Korean, Chinese, English, bad English, German, Russian, and Italian. We marveled at the Europeans who had made the trek in high-heels, feeling stripped of our entitlement to weariness. Tucked on a well-chosen crevice in the rock, a Bedouin guide provided warmth for two scantily clad Eastern European women, prefiguring the sunrise with a bright euphoric smirk on his face. When the sun finally reared its fat face, the most devout of pilgrims also came out of hiding. We had anticipated a glut of acoustic guitars, but felt duly vindicated when a clean-shaven elderly German brandished a silver trumpet from his bag and heralded the sunrise with hymns. Some of the faithful sang along while others chuckled into their blankets and scarves. For the last thirty minutes the sun ‘s presence was felt, though it was out of sight. The contours of the distant range of hills came into view and those behind us glowed a kiln-baked red. Should you pay heed to the tourist urge and make this obligatory climb, the way you conclude your time at the peak is a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure. For those so inclined, one can revel in the mystery of nature, myth, and the sacred. For those not so inclined, one can indulge cynicism, mocking the “masses†prostration before the gods of tourism and consumption. Or, one can take another bite of a caramelized peanut bar and repose somewhere between the two. BM
