We headed back up the coast turning inland through the desert to St Katherine's Monestry tucked in the barren valley at the foot of Mount Sinai which has been a place of pilgrimage since the 4th century built by the side of what is believed to be the burning bush where God spoke to Moses. Today St. Katherines is considered to be one of the oldest continually functioning monastic communities in the world. Not a great deal of the monestry is open to be public and although we had driven out there specifically to visit the monestry we never actually went inside. The monestry opens at 9.a.m by which time the car park is full of tourist coaches, their passengers already queueing to get into the monestry. Such was the totally unchristian attitude of those pushing and shoving thier way to the front that we didn't bother which is a shame as behaviour like that totally spoils the serenity of the place.

Rising up out of the desert and towering over the monestry is the 2285m Mount Sinai. The mountain is easy and beautiful to climb although apparently overun at the summit with tourists. Anyone wishing to climb to the top must rise at 3 a.m. in order to get to the top in time for the spectacular sun rise.

The campsite at St. Katherine's was a lovely bedouin place with was like an oasis of peace and quiet. We parked in the middle of the irrigated garden overlooking a small pen with baby camels and donkeys. A German man lived in a tent at the pen with his tiny romany caravan and it had taken him 10 years to get from Germany on foot with his two donkeys to where he was in Egypt. We also met a South African guy with his German wife and their three children who were on route from South Africa to Germany and were waiting in Egypt for their visas to travel through Libya and get to Germany for Christmas. We spent the evening sitting with them and the German man whilst they gave us details of nice places they stayed on their journey north for us to visit on the journey south.

The drive up to Suez was a long one firstly through the desert and then following the spectacular coast line all the way. We stopped for petrol and tried to find a squeezy to wash the windows but there wasn't one. The guy produced some water and wet newspaper and cleaned it with that but Peter just managed to stop him as he was about the start rubbing our sand covered bonnet with the newspaper which would have ended up looking as though it had been attacked with a brillo pad!

We carried on up to Suez and drove through the tunnel under the Suez Canal (where strangely enough nobody checked our documents) and into bustling Suez spread around the shores of the gulf where the Red Sea meets the Suez canal. We found a great little hotel and our room had a balcony looking directly over the canal. The hotel restaurant on the 6th floor had a fantastic view over the yacht club and the canal and it was a lovely place where we had a basic but enjoyable meal watching huge tankers pass through the canal. The canal has survived through many a conflict and its toll revenues today represent one of the largest contributors to the Egyptian state coffers.