We finally escaped Egypt only to return again

This Passover I was finally able to say "This year in Jerusalem." However, I took the message of the wise son to heart (that we were all slaves in the land of Egypt) and decided to set out and escape from bondage; to travel from Egypt to Jerusalem. Well, that was not the thought process exactly. I wanted to go to Egypt and Passover vacation happened to be a convenient time; it was no big deal that we had to eat Matzo for snack while we were by the pyramids.

Here is the story:

First we set out on a bus to Eilat (along with everyone else in Israel because it was Spring Break for everyone). Once in Eilat, we crossed the border to Taba Egypt. From there, we traveled to St. Katherine and the area with Mt. Sinai.

We arrived in the protectorate of St. Katherine. It is a small town in the middle of the Sinai that has a few stores and a few hotels for the tourists coming to hike Mt. Sinai. We woke up at 1:30 in the morning to do the sunrise hike to the top of Mt. Sinai.

There were hundreds of people from all over the world sitting on the top of the mountain for sunrise. People were singing, praying, or just sitting there freezing waiting for the sun to come up. We then climbed down the mountain via the 3,750 "steps of penitence." Always following behind our trusty Bedouin guide.

Unfortunately, random Thursday in March is a holiday and therefore the Monastery of St. Catherine was closed. But we got to walk around it and look at some of the gardens.

Next stop, Cairo. We then took a 5 hour car ride through the Sinai to get to our next destination. It was a beautiful drive in between the expansive desert to our right and the sea to our left. After a mostly uneventful car ride, we ended up at our hostel. The next day, bright and early we headed to the Pyramids of Giza. Here is a picture of me looking like the cliche tourist I felt like:

No matter how much you mentally prepare yourself to see the Pyramids, they will still take your breath away.

Although we ate our "bread of affliction" by the Pyramids to spite the ancient Egyptians, the Giza Pyramids were not build by the slave labor of the Israelites. Apparently, it was a huge bureaucratic tactic aimed at giving farmers work during the rainy season.

The Sphinx is actually a lot smaller in person

After Giza we went to the Egypt Museum. It was absolutely incredible. It is not heavily funded so the exhibits are not very organized, but the amount of amazing artifacts they had in the museum put both the MET and the British Museum to shame. Unfortunately, they are very strict about taking pictures and I had to check my camera outside and therefore I have no pictures of the exhibits.

Day One of Cairo ended when we went out to a "fancy" dinner at a hip restaurant on the "nice" side of the Nile. Rough Guides marked this restaurant in the "expensive" category. Meals ended up costing about $8 a person. Not too shabby. We then went to get dessert in the Marriot Hotel. But this was not some ordinary hotel, it was actually built as a palace to celebrate the completion of the Suez Canal.