There were mountains of rock minus vegetation for as far as the eye can see with valleys in between. There was a big pile of rubble close by that was once, I was told, a mountain like the others around it.
The rubble consists mostly of blackish rocks and boulders of various sizes piled up together. The story goes that Musa had requested to see Allah but rather than Allah revealing Himself, demonstrated His power instead by sending flashes of light and burnt the mountain down into rubble. That’s the pile of rubble in the centre of the second picture shown here.After having a good rest in the ‘surau’ or small mosque we started making our descent. Just as we were doing so, the last batch of six climbers in our group arrived at the peak. We left them to do their own thing and started descending.
My thought before going down was that it would be much easier than the climb. But no, it was not, I discovered. Ram had quite a tough time seeing her way down the steps. This was because with the bright sun shining there were no shadows at the steps, thus Ram could not differentiate the levels of the steps and she saw the whole flight of steps as one whole piece going down. She was not sure where to put her feet and where to step on. She had to be guided step by step. This really slowed us down. We were practically going down hand-in-hand!! A blessing really and most relaxing once she got the knack of it. She was also using the big boulders around for support while going down. We reached the upper camel station at just after noon and just then the group that was behind us caught up with us.
We were undecided whether to continue on foot or take the camel. There was a long way yet to go down and would be tiring for both of us to walk all the way. We decided to take the camel. Boy, was that a mistake. Going down the steep slope on camel was even worse than the going up, we discovered. We were constantly thrown forward with every movement of the animal as it stepped downwards and we had to hold on to that wooden rod very hard for dear life!! Otherwise we will be pushed against the rod and that can hurt…… bad…… I had on me a backpack, Ram’s shawl which she did not need anymore as it was getting from warm to hot, and a bottle of water. Then I had to hold on to that wooden rod and I remembered my grandson who commented to his mother when she asked him to help her carry some more staff to those he was already carrying, “Mummy, I only have two hands!!” Oh boy, how my palms hurt constantly pushing my weight against that wooden rod. I could not even take pictures with my camera. It was just dangling on my wrist!! But then it was better having to put pressure on my palms and hands then to have pressure in between my legs, if you get what I mean!! It was a far greater relief getting off the camel at the bottom station then it was when we went up and we were walking bow-legged for a longer distance too before we got back our sense of balance. Phew….. that was some experience. Why continue riding the camel then? It was a very long distance to walk, even if it was downhill all the way, we thought we would be more exhausted walking. So we did not exhaust ourselves walking but we endured pain. Not much of a choice was it not?
We arrived at the hotel at just before 3.00pm. Lunch was waiting for us and we were overdue for check out. Hence we had a quick wash, freshened up, had lunch, prayers and all, all within one hour.
On our way out of St Catherine and the Wadi Muqaddas area we stopped to view from a distance the tombs or graves of Prophet Harun, Prophet Salleh and the stoned golden calf or cow of Samir, all from the bus as we were running late. Please see the pictures below.
We arrived at our hotel in Cairo at just after 9pm for a much wanted rest and ‘rejuvenation’ for the itinerary of the next day………
MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya
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