Sinai and Dahab

This week tops last week for sure. The Pyramids were great, but Dahab is the heaven I dream of. Let me start at the begining: After our second week of classes the group took off at 6pm Thursday, and got to the base of Mt. Sinai at about 2am. I know what you all are thinking, but we did not sleep one wink. At 2am the 30 of us hiked to the very top (mind, you Sinai is a beast of a mountain) to see the sunrise. It took 3 hrs, lots of switchbacks and the grand finale of 740ish stairs to get to the top. I thought I was going to die a lot, but I made it in spectacular fashion just in time to sit on the edge of the peak and watch the most majestic sunrise of my life. The moutains on the Sinai Peninsular are nothing like mountains we see in America, they are barren but extraordinary, pictures cannot do it justice. After hiking back down by 8am, we hung out out St. Catherine's monastary to regain strength from not sleeping and hiking lots. But then we drove another 2 hrs to Dahab, a hippie beach town on the Gulf of Aqaba, facing Saudi Arabia. When we got there, everyone was exhausted so we ate lunch, and spent the rest of the day on the beach, swimming in the Red Sea. Which, by the way, is so blue and so clean, and perfect, that I never ever wanted to leave Dahab. After a $5 dinner to rival Wolf Gang Puck at a sit on the floor resteraunt looking across at Saudi Arabia(which we could see clearly) everyone slept long and hard.
The next morning we took off for a place called the Blue Hole to snorkel. This place is supposedly the second best place in the world to snorkel after the Great Barrier Reef. Even though it was my first snor-killing experience, I would agree. Basically, you get a snokel, goggles, and flippers and walk down to a dock. The dock is a blue plastic thing that leads out over coral until the coral mysteriously drops hundreds and hundreds of feet. I saw more fish and coral and deep blue waters than I thought ever existed. I loved being there so much! After another day spent on the beach and at eating by the beach, we spent one last night in Dahab.
Yesterday, we left Dahab and returned to Cairo. I was sad to leave, but today I woke up and found myself sitting at the feet of Hossam Baghat for class today. Baghat is a well known and respected human rights lawyer in Egypt, and he offered the lot of us some of the smartest and evenhanded discourse we have had here. I slightly fell in love with this 30 yr old, well educated, highly accomplished man who is quoted in the Economist and created his own Human Rights organization after he was kicked out of Egypt's for defending gay rights. Humdulilah.
I have a few more days of class, but I leave on Thursday for Luxor to see all the Pharaohnic sites such as the Valley of the Kings. I am living the most amazing life :)