Discover Sinai

Originally posted on February 7, 2015 The whole southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula is a mountainous area, while the High Mountain Region proper, sometimes called the Central High Mountains, is the area in the middle around the town of St. Katherine. (See Google Earth screenshots below.) Up to 80% of the massif is granite of different types formed as far back as 600 million years, but there are also mountains that are made of newer, about 10 million year-old black volcanic rock. Sandstone and limestone are found north of the mountainous tip, forming surrealistic rock formations, sandy plains and eroded layered plateaus. In the mountainous area red granite and black volcanic mountains are often found together, as we can see with the Jebel Safsafa-Mt. Sinai, the Jebel Raba-Jebel Ahmar-Mt. Katharina or the Jebel Abu Mahashur-Jebel Abbas Basha ranges. In each case much of the mass of the mountains is made of hard and smooth red granite, but the famous peaks are actually softer crumbling bl...

Originally posted on August 3, 2016 From spring to late autumn, there is always some seasonal fruit in the Sinai mountains. Wetter and cooler than the rest of the desert, the wadis of the mountainous region around St Catherine hide over 500 ancient orchards. Many are abandoned today, but you can still find a lot of beautiful gardens that are cared for. The Bedouin of the mountains are expert gardeners who have been cultivating a wide range of fruit species for over a thousand years. They had to deal with the shortage of water, on one hand, as well as with the forceful flash floods that occasionally sweep through the valleys, on the other. So garden walls were built robust, to withstand the onslaught of water and to retain the soil. At the same time holes in the wall and channels were built to direct some of the water to wells and small reservoirs. Built from rocks of various sizes, some as big as a car, every ancient garden is a work of art. The gardeners are also masters of grafting, ...