Sinai adventure — Ton Tenga

While serving in northern Africa and the Middle East, our leadership team needed some R and R, some team building and some time focusing on the Word—or as Mike Barnett would say, The Manual. Our team included Mike Barnett, David Bishop, John Brady, Mike Edens, Brian Harper, Elias Moussa, Eddie Pate and me. We also invited Hoyt Savage, a pastor friend from Nevada, on this adventure to help us focus on the Word. Another member of our team, Gerry Volkhart, decided that she would hang out with our wives and not go on what she called a boy’s adventure. She preferred sightseeing and shopping in Cairo with the women.

Our adventure was set in the Sinai Desert in Egypt. The Sinai Peninsula is a land bridge between Asia and Africa, and it is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the north and the Red Sea on the south. It is a part of Egypt and shares a long border with Israel on the eastern borde

The area where we were trekking is essentially composed of volcanic rock and is sharply incised by deep, canyonlike “wadis” (seasonal watercourses) that drain toward the Gulf of Suez or the Gulf of Aqaba. Hot days and cool nights are prevalent in this parched land.

We hired a team of Bedouin tribesmen, and they served as guides, camel herders for our camels, camp setup team, cooks and storytellers. When we met up with our Bedouin guides, they offered us camels to ride. Those of us who had already experienced this MOST uncomfortable means of transport declined the offer and said that we would walk. The ones who wanted to ride joined us on the ground after a few hours perched on a camel’s back. So we all wound up walking. After all, this was a trekking adventure. The camels were our beasts of burden as they carried all our supplies.

Part of our Bedouin team would ride ahead of us and set up our tents and prepare the campsite.

Our chief guide frequently commented on the beauty of the terrain. He would often say, “Look at this beautiful scene. Isn’t this the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?” We decided that our guide was really into earth tones because all we saw was the same brownish colored panorama. However, there were wide open plains and surrealistic sandstone hills and rocks carved by winds, flat topped ranges and plateaus with dramatic views, rugged mountains in the distance and a maze of long winding wadis and hidden canyons that had formerly carried away rainwater. Beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder!

I had discussed with our guide about the desire to have some team-building experiences, and he asked me to explain this. He caught on to the idea and carried us through some very narrow vertical openings carved in the sandstone thousands of years ago by heavy rains. They were like 24” wide shafts, and the only way to maneuver up or down was to use your knees, buttocks, shoulders and hands to inch along—with the encouragement of your teammates either above or below you.

The Bedouin fascinated our team with their familiarity of the land, with utilizing the camels, knowing how to make us feel comfortable in a strange desert, but most of all in making bread. They built a fire in the sand, and while one of the Bedouin worked the coals out of the fire into a separate pile, another was making bread. The bread maker looked like he was making a pizza crust—throwing it into the air and rolling it around in his hands. His colleague spread the coals, and suddenly, the bread maker threw the bread dough on top of the coals. Then they spread more coals on top of the bread. The next step convinced all us trekkers that we were not going to eat any bread that night. They covered the coals and bread with sand!!

After a few minutes of sipping hot, sugar-laden tea around the fire, they uncovered the bread and it was golden brown with a crispy crust. One of the Bedouin knocked the bread against his arm and the sand and black ashes fell off.

They served that bread (and several more loaves) to us with wild honey harvested that day. Miraculously there was no sand on the bread, and we all agreed that was some of the best bread that we had ever eaten.