Well, I am back now, but I want to add a few posts to the blog for our last days, plus a few extra thoughts.
When we left off, we were following the Moses and the Hebrews as the fled Egypt. They crossed into the Sinai peninsula and made their way to the “Mountain of God”.
In truth, about all we know for sure is that they left Egypt, got to the mountain, then left to wander for 40 years. There are countless theories about the exact route, the true number of Hebrews, the places they stopped, and where the “mountain of God” is/was.
The path we followed is but one of the suggested routes. It is a reasonable guess (much more reasonable than many others, by my estimation), but no more than that.
Still, if it wasn’t this exact path, it must have been one that looked much the same. In fact, some parts of life in this region haven’t changed much in the past 3500 years. The area is a vast area of sand and rock, little water, few trees or vegetation. It is a harsh land at best.
We started our day at a resort by the Red Sea, south of the Suez Canal. This whole stretch of beach is being filled with hotels for Egyptians who want to escape the city and Europeans who want cheap, sunny beach holidays. 
We headed south along the coast, then turned east into a long canyon, knows as Wadi Ferian. Bedouins still live in this canyon and while it looks bone dry, you could see many wells that dotted the valley floor. 
We stopped at an oasis that would have been a natural stopping spot. No water today, but obviously there is water near the surface and wells could have been there in Moses time. 
In the Exodus account, we read that the Israelites got into a fight on the way to the mountain:
Exo 17:8-10 "The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. {9} Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." {10} So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill."
This is the traditional spot of this battle: a bottleneck in Wadi Ferian that would have been a natural place for a small group of warriors to try and stop a larger group they saw as invaders.
This is the place Moses might have stood and at one time a monastery stood on this hill. 
The locals seem to appear out of nowhere when the tour busses stop. This lady was a tough bargainer.
As you climb into the canyon, the mountains rise higher, until you reach the base of Jebu Musa, the traditional Mt Sinai, at 5000 feet. More on that in the next post.
