Day 07 began with getting off the overnight train in Cairo. Funny story: the JUC group took over two of the first class train cabins, so we were all bunched up into one large group. A friend of mine named Matt had woken up especially early, and thought it would be hilarious to throw a practical joke. We had received a very stern lecture the night before that we absolutely needed to be ready to get off the train at Cairo because the train was continuing up to Alexandria; if we failed to get off on our stop, it would be our own responsibility to find our way back into Israel and up to JUC. Needless to say we were all rather paranoid. So, about 5:45 that morning, Matt runs into the hall way of the second car, puts on an Egyptian accent that sounds exactly like Mina our tour guide and yells, "JUC! This is our stop... Let's go!" My classmates were throwing this bags out into the hall ways, swearing under their breaths, trying to throw their clothes on over their PJs, all with looks of panic in their eyes. Matt was soon thereafter banished to my car and labeled as the jerk of the trip.
We had about a 3.5 hour bus ride toward the Sinai out of Cairo. We stopped at t rest station for a bathroom break and so people could purchase water at will. We were outside for a few minutes before a caravan of jeeps come screeching around the corner. Dr. Wright and Nayer told us that we would be taking jeeps across the sand dunes up to a temple dedicated to Hathor and to go explore some turquoise mines. SO MUCH FUN!
I can't even describe it. It felt like we were driving on ice most of the time. This picture was taken from further back in the caravan, but I was up in the front with Dan and Dr. Wright. The leader was the teacher and all of the other drivers were the students. I thought that he was going to be a boring driver, but apparently I was mistaken. He obviously wanted to prove to us and the rest of the caravan that he was the teacher for a reason... if that meant going faster, further, and the more treacherous route, so be it. I literally thought I was going to die on several occasions.
About 2 hours into the jeep ride, we stopped at a Bedouin camp for lunch. We hadn't eaten since 6:00 AM, so a 3:00 lunch was greatly appreciated. The food was pretty much the same as we had been eating since crossing the border, but the goat cheese was about as authentic as you can get.
Then we hopped back into the jeeps and traveled another half and hour or so until we reached the base of the mountain we were going to climb to get to the Hathor Temple. Our guide spoke no English and was not interested in rushing through the experience in the least. My divide and conquer attitude learned some patience on the way up.
The temple was beautiful, with incredible views to a huge portion of the Sinai area. Dr. Wright pointed out to us Jebal Musa, or Mt. Sinai that we would be waking up at 2:30 AM to climb the next morning. I looked at it and thought, "Well, so much for that. I'll just get a good night's sleep back at the hotel." 9,000 ft? That's a long ways.
This is a picture of one of the Turquoise mines that we were able to explore. I was a bit disappointed, but that's probably because I had visions of the 7 dwarves whistling while they worked among sparkling wall of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, etc. In any case, I spent more time watching the sun set and the full moon rise than searching for a speck of turquoise. 
We off road-ed it back to the bus, droved until 11:30 PM when we reached out hotel, Maria and I skipped dinner and went straight to bed, and we held our breaths, knowing that 2:30 AM was going to come all together too quickly.