I made it today to St Catherine in the middle of the Sinai desert - It's a 2 hours drive from Dahab on the coast - Staying now at the Bedouin camp and organizing my desert trek in a couple of days - setting up details with Sheikh Moussa - Will be visiting St Catherine monastery and climbing Mt Sinai in The next couple days. It's winter time and it's pretty cold here. We are at around an altitude of 1600 m (5200 feet) - The highest point in the Sinai and entire Egypt that I will be climbing in a couple days is Mt St Catherine at 2800 m (9100 feet)
By the way, the energy here is very special - Sheikh Moussa even organises week long spiritual retreats where you go into fasting and the retreat in a cave for a few days... As he says, this is a universal practice you can engage into no matter what your spiritual or religious beliefs are - Very similar to what I have been doing in the Himalayas and other places around the world.
He says that his Bedouin tribe originally came from Greece a long time ago and they are still connected with the Greek Orthodox tradition that is active in the St Catherine monastery - I already feel in this place a profound respect and openness to all faiths and beliefs... Beautiful! I love that!