After three hours of driving or so, we arrive at our destination, Saint Catherine's Monastery, officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Catherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai. The monastery was sanctioned by the orders of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, between 548-565 BCE. But,in the year 330 ACE, the Empress Helena, the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, built a church with massive granite blocks, believed to be on the site where God spoke to Moses through the burning bush.

After our UNIWORLD riverboat docked in Luxor, we flew back to Cairo and then to Sharm El Sheikh International Airport on the Asian side of Egypt. To say we were fagged and weary was an understatement; we were overwhelmed by all that we had previously experienced and the daily five a.m. wake up calls on the riverboat added to it.