On our way to visit St. Katherine's Monastery, we drove through some starkly beautiful scenery. The Red Sea Mountain Range, known as Gebel El Igma is home to Mt. Sinai, St. Katherine's Monastery and a handful of Bedouin. The spelling is approximate since - like Russian and many Asian languages - Arabic doesn't always make a smooth transition into the western alphabet. With the exception of the acacia tree and a few small sturdy plants, almost nothing grows that isn't irrigated. Some Bedouin, (the word basically means desert dweller), monks and a very small number of desert dwelling critters are this desert range's primary residents.
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Views of the mountains. If you look closely, you can see a patch of green in the picture above and the one to the left. This is an oasis. Date palms actually require a lot of water and only grow where water is close to the surface. An Acacia tree has deep roots and can tap much deeper sources of water. |
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A Bedouin family that makes at least part of its living by selling trinkets to travelers. Below: A rest stop on the way to St. Katherine's. The goat was hell bent on knocking the basket over. |
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At right is a burial marker near Sharira Pass, a monument to someone who had a part in building the Sharm el Sheikh-Dahab highway. Not clear whether they were an engineer, contractor or military officer. |
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Dahab is much smaller & quieter than Sharm. If you look closely, the mountains you see in the background are actually across the gulf in Saudi Arabia. |
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Isis (Kara named the cat) stealing Kara's lunch in Dahab. She got away with a pretty good portion...a real pro. |
