DAY 60 - SINAI - EGYPT After our border crossing we spent the day relaxing at a chilled out beach café in Nuweiba before driving to St Katherines at the foot of Mount Sinai. We got an early night in preparation for another long day... We struggled to get up when our alarm went off at 2am...especially since we did not get any sleep the night before crossing from Jordan into Egypt. The reason we had set the alarm was rather balmy...we were going to climb up to the top of Mount Sinai to see the sun rise. This is the mountain that Moses recieved the ten commandments from God in the Old Testement. It seemed a good idea the night before but we were all so tired it was very hard to actually get out of our beds. We did it however, and trekked up amongst lots of camels and praying Christians who were making a pilgrimage up the mountain and made it to the top just before 5am. It was a beautiful sight and indeed rather spiritual as groups from all over the world sang and prayed as the sun rose over the mountains below. We whizzed around St Katherine's Monastery as it was about to close - this is the world's oldest church and the sight of the Burning Bush. The artefacts and icons in the museum were incredible - with many first century AD manuscripts. This monestary has been the guardian of the Christian faith for thousands of years and has made for a facinating visit. Next stop - Las Vegas...or as it seemed to us. We all had a culture shock as we arrived at Na'ama Bay, Sharm el Sheik - site of some of the world's best diving but where the underwater world is a lot more beautiful than the touristy developments above ground. We actually stayed in a quieter more relaxing beach called Sharks Bay, 10km east of Na'ama Bay and had a chance to relax and snorkel in the beautifully clear Red Sea whist Jonny did a day's diving. We were kindly given some snorkels for free by Mohammed Hassan, the dive master at Umbi Dive Centre in Shark's Bay, which is a place we recommend anyone to learn to dive (tel. 002/012 7967491). Although Jonny is a qualified diving instructor and has done over 300 dives he thought that Ras Mohammed, at the tip of the southern peninsular of Sinai, was one of the best dives of his life. We had a lovely evening with Jonny's friend, Heidi and her boyfriend Rob who were in Sharm for a holiday. It was fun to have a night out and drink in Happy Hour bars and eat pizzas amongst western tourists - quite a change from being in the desert in Wadi Rum! A huge thank you to Heidi for very kindly buying and bringing out a replacement Coleman stove for us - and also a trashy novel and copy of Marie Claire - for those vital fashion and make-up tips whist on our journey - I'm disappointed that scummy shorts and t-shirts aren't this year's cat walk favourite and that eau de Mosquito repellent isn't the latest must-have scent... The following day we bush camped in Ras Mohammed park - right next to the Red Sea. We had the most amazing snorkel - we literally saw hundreds of species of fish and coral - better than we have ever seen. In about an hour, swimming from the beach we saw two turtles, a six foot moray eel, barracuda, huge tuna, lionfish, angel fish, trigger fish etc etc and we even found Nemo (clown fish). Jonny explained that this is probably the best place in the world to do a shore snokel and even he was amazed at the amount of sea life we saw. The evening was spent sipping beers, smoking cigars and listening to cheesy pop tunes. Again we saw nobody were we had camped and we had our own private bay with a beautiful turquoise coast all to ourselves. Great! DAY 61 SINAI - CAIRO After an early morning snorkel off our private bay, where we saw as many fish as there are in 'The Blue Planet', we all jumped in the car and headed towards Cairo. This was going to be a long day's driving (over 500kms through the desert). Luckily, we had a fresh supply of BBC audio books sent to us from home (thanks Dad) and we listened to Agatha Christy's 'Murder in the Caribbean'. Was it femme fatale Lucky who killed the Major, or was it the dubious Jackson? None of us got to find out as we arrived in Cairo before Miss Marple could reveal the murderer. Driving in Cairo is certainly not for the faint hearted. At night no one drives with their lights on and the roads resemble a scene from the chariot race in Ben Hur. After some good map reading from Jonny and Camilla, we managed to find a camp site at the foot of the pyramids. The beers were certainly needed to recover from the Cairo traffic. DAY 62 As it was Jonny's last day, he dashed off to visit the Egyptian Museum, whilst we worked on the car and wrote postcards. We ended the day by visiting the Great Pyramids of Giza (must larger than any of us expected). We were one of the last people let in due to early closing in Ramadan and were surprised at how little hassle we got from touts inside the complex. For sunset we hired a couple of camels to ride off into the desert and view the pyramids at dusk. All our legs suffered and we felt like cowboys with bowed legs when we got off them. In the evening, Jonny kindly took us out for a meal at the great restaurant, called The Mogul Room, at the Oberoi Mena House hotel at the foot of the pyramids. We started with numerous Gin Martinis in the bar (we are now at a tally of 7 in our 'Round the World in 80 Martinis challenge). After pigging out of fantastic curry we had just enough time to wave Jonny on his way back to the airport. The leg between Amman and Cairo has certainly been the best of the trip so far. We will spend the next few days resting and planning our next leg through Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. Next up....Cairo city, the Western Desert, Egyptian Oasis', and the famous Egyptian land marks of Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simble. Tara for now!