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Wadi Kelt and Jericho in the backround |
What can be said about desert monasteries in Egypt that haven't already been said?... Well apparently a whole lot. Since I last posted I have had quite the range of intellectual and spiritual experiences. The first day of our trip was spent traveling thru the West Bank toward the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea, of course, is the lowest point on earth. Before I had just taken that as some fact that is "cool" but really, it probably wouldn't bother me. I was wrong. My recently reconstructed elbow ached. It would pop and crunch nearly every movement I made. I could not believe the pressure and humidity that this place had.
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St. Gerasimo |
Our first stop was at the monastery of St. Gerasimo. This monastery was situated just a few kilometers from the Jordan River and Jericho so getting out of the bus this first time was a shock to the system. Twenty-five miles from Jerusalem, and a couple thousand feet below, the temperature had changed probably upwards of 30 degrees. Our next stop was a little weird. Qumran, an ancient and deserted monastery estimated to have been around before and during the time of Jesus, was the place where some Bedouin sheepherders had discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls a couple of decades earlier. Apparently John the Baptist may have lived here for a couple of years but left probably because he realized they might have had a couple screws loose.
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Dead Sea from Qumron |
After a brief stop at Mosada we went to our first night at a desert retreat called Zman Midbar (Desert Time) in the Negev Desert. This place had some spirit! A hike to the nearby ridge gave us a view of the Negev and Judean deserts as well as the Dead Sea. Incredible. We all slept in a large tented area built into the hills. There was also a "prayer building" which the owners talked to us about their mission and aim of creating a non-exclusive place of spiritual peace. The owners were a very happy and peaceful Jewish couple that lived in Erat, a nearby Israeli city. For the first time since I have been here I was able to engage with Israelis as normal, peaceful people. During the night I heard in the distance a Bedoiun tribal dance. The drums and chanting really soothed me into sleep.
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Zman Midbar Spirituality Center, Negev Desert |
The next day we woke to the sunrise and left early for the Elat/Taba boarder between Israel and Egypt. Our tour guide, Jacoban, was a wonderful narrator of the trip to the boarder. One of the many insights of hers was about alcohol in the Muslim faith. I had always thought that Medina must have been a city of drunks for Muhammad to outlaw it but according to Jacoban the origin is more about dehydration of a nomadic desert people than purification. Sadly, she left us at the boarder, as we had to totally unload the first bus and walk a half-mile thru boarder checks and customs into Egypt.
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Pharaoh's Island outside of Taba, Egypt |
The next six hours were spent crossing the Sinai toward Suez and Cairo. We had quite the entourage on this particular leg of the journey. Our new tour guide, two bus drivers for the long trip and our own security escort equipped with an automatic weapon that he carelessly concealed in his overcoat. It was as if we were vulnerable to an attack from one of donkey riding teenagers that inhabited the pit stops. I guess that's why no one messed with us. I slept most of the rest of the day until we descended into Cairo and Giza. I first spotted the pyramids on the horizon about twenty miles away; they were surely the highest structures around. I was able to snap a picture with a minaret perfectly sticking out the middle of one of the pyramids. This picture was totally by chance but it is really symbolic of something; I'm not sure what the symbolism is yet, but I'm working on it.
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Pyramids of Giza with Minaret |
That night we stayed at a hotel in Giza nearby the pyramids. While the course director's son, Adam, and I played pool at the "bar" (it was far from a bar) a wedding precession went by. The drums and singing reminded me of the Bedouin the night before; it was quite the celebration. The men sang loudly and cheerfully and some of the women ululated. This is a shrill throat yodel or howl, for lack of better words, that fills the room.
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Day three started with a somewhat hurried visit to the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. Our tour guide was a delightful man named Ashraf who told me about how he used to climb the pyramids in his youth. He shared with us the two theories of the construction of the pyramids: the first, he said jokingly, was that aliens built them. The second, more practical, explanation was that they built ramps that were able to transport the up to 75-ton blocks. The problems with this theory is that this ramp that circles the pyramid would have been more difficult to build than the pyramid itself and it would have had to be able to support an immense amount of weight. Even today we don't have a crane that would allow us to lift blocks this heavy as high and far as they would need to be lifted to construct these structures! It doesn't stop there. The pyramids were built using limestone quarried from a mountain nearby and 75 ton blocks of granite that was collected nearly 850km away. More than 2 millennia later we still aren’t exactly sure how they were constructed. There are 119 pyramids in Egypt.
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Cairo Entrepreneur |
Our next stop was at the papyrus institute where some Egyptian with a southern drawl taught us how papyrus is made. His sell was good enough to get me to buy more papyrus than I need but I'm on vacation. We also stopped off in Old Cairo and the "Hanging" Coptic church. This was a gorgeous church built over top of an old Roman structure called the Babylonian Towers. This brick structure protected the church from the seasonal flood of the Nile.
Copts, meaning Egyptians, are the surviving Christians from Egypt. This large minority has it's own language that resembles the ancient Egyptian's. The written form is made up of ancient Egyptian symbols combined with seven added Greek. The Coptic belief is based off the teachings of Saint Mark the apostle, in the 1st century after he traveled to Egypt preaching the word of Jesus. Ashraf told us that under the current conservative Egyptian government, there is a sense of discrimination against the Copts that surfaces as mosques are springing up all over but the Coptics find it very difficult, almost impossible to construct a new church.
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Anafora |
After this visit to Old Cairo we set off to the west toward Anafora, a Coptic desert retreat center that we would spend the next two nights. This was a very nice little compound that was self sustaining and quaint. We stayed in bungalow-like houses. They were dome shaped, white buildings that were just perfectly suited for a desert oasis. On the second night there the local Copts were celebrating the annual blessing of water. Just that morning they had finished filling a beautiful, 70-meter pool. The local Copts came to take communion then float a cross in the water. It was a very special ceremony to be apart of/observer to.
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Blessing of Water at Anafora |
The next morning we parted toward Wadi el Natrun, a natural depression west of the Nile that offered springs for the ancient desert people, to visit three very early monasteries in the region. Monasteries of St. Bishoi, as-Souriani, and Abu Makarios. Side note: seeing one monastery is just as good as seeing them all. You might be surprised to know that there was no noticeable difference between the three; a wall surrounding the complex, a couple of church that you had to take your shoes off to go into, a fortress to protect the inhabitants from dirty rotten robbers from Lybia, and very old monk living quarters. Really there was no reason for the repetition. But as jaded as I sound I really did gain an appreciation for the solitude and devotion that these men were seeking. I kind of had an admiration for their resolve. I know that there is no way I could put myself in that situation though. I don't desire solitude that much and I think that my inner monologue would drive me crazy. But, interestingly enough, every one of the monks that gave the tour had a cell phone that would not stop ringing.
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Truck full of camels |
Having escaped from the abunas we set off for our hotel all the way on the Red Sea. Our intended hotel was having AC issues so we were forced to move our stay. Just a note on air conditioning in the Middle East: if there were any outside sense of hostility from this region before AC became the norm, I would sympathize entirely. I would be an angry, sandy SOB if I had to live here without AC. But that's just me. Anyway, the subsequent hotel that we stayed was inappropriately named Hotel Romance. I was not in love with this hotel. It wasn't the rooms or food, actually they both very nice. I did not enjoy the dry campus mentality as well as the pool hours (sunrise to sunset) in a pool that teased us with lights in the pool. I just couldn’t understand and needless to say, I couldn’t have been less comfortable in Romance Hotel.
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View from Holy Cave of St Anthony |
The next day we went to the monastery of St. Anthony, the originator of monastic life. When Anthony was young his father and mother died leaving him a very large wealth and 300 acres of land on the Nile. After a couple years of contemplating his Christianity he decided to give all his land to the poor and go live in solitude. He ended up establishing the first monastery in the world just under the cliff face that he lived in for 40 years. After our tour led by Abba Ruwas, a delightful old monk that seemed to love to entertain and teach, we were able to climb to the holy cave of Anthony on Mount Qulzum. As I struggled to fit in the cave I started to appreciate the lifestyle he lived. Then I hit my head on a rock and decided to leave before I swore in a holy place. The cave had a great view of the surrounding desolate land and on a clear day Abba Ruwas said you could see to the Red Sea. On the way back to the hotel Jill insisted that we stop at a market so we could get and I quote "some special drinks that the hotel doesn't offer." pretty diplomatic of her huh? I sure do love my aunt!
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Hoop on the Gulf of Suez |
The next day's 7-hour bus ride around the Gulf of Suez and underneath the Suez Canal was hot. The tunnel under the canal is pretty cool though. It dives under the bypassing freight boats that are lined up waiting to enter the canal as far as the eye can see. When we started to head toward St. Catherine monastery in the southern tip of Sinai Peninsula, it was incredible to see the landscape change from plateau desert land to really mountainous desert. As we headed up Wadi Firan we could see free roaming camels grazing in the trees. The colors of these mountains were incredible: deep red mountains with amber hues that fall steeply into sandy basins. Closer inspection yielded dark streaks of purple and black that seemed to trace the mountains like the rings of a tree would trace the trunk. It was as if the solidified lava bedrock of the world extended 8,500 ft above sea level.
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tiger |
3AM the next morning we woke for our EB camel ride up Mount Sinai. I was giddy. Never have I been so excited for an EB. The group gathered then were chosen by the Bedouin camel jockeys depending on our fit with the camel. The Bedouin that chose me was named Moses, however coincidentally, and our camel's name was Tiger. I started to laugh when he told me the name because I thought that it was just like naming your cat, Dog; as I said, I was in that tired, laugh at anything mood.
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Summit of Mount Sinai from Elijah's Plateau |
Camels are strange and beautiful creatures. For as big as they are, they are surprisingly graceful. Their backward knees allow them to lay straight up and down as you get on then stand up first with their back legs then the front. This is a sensation that you really can't properly prepare for and when we arrived at Elijah's plateau the abruptness of this move in reverse sent me into the saddle horn with a grunt. As you watch a camel walk you can see the softness of their feet and the length of their gate that really make the ride almost pleasant. Still though, the hour and a half ride up made me pretty sore until I found that crossing one leg in front of the saddle horn would take the pressure off my groin. So, mimicking what I saw in Lawrence of Arabia I sat that way for the rest of the trip. Moses was impressed. He said I sat like a Bedouin. I remember thinking, "I'm the man. I ride like a Bedouin."
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Sunrise from Mount Sinai |
I hiked up from Elijah's plateau to the top as the rest of the groups did a sunrise Eucharist. I was able to watch the amazing sunrise from a little perch off the eastern edge of the summit.