The Idler

In the Footsteps of Moses

A couple of years ago I started seeing a new girlfriend (who I shall call M), who only five weeks into the relationship suggested we went away on holiday together. Despite my misgivings that it was a bit soon for such things, she insisted that she had a good ‘2 for the price of 1′ deal, and that I may as well go. So I went. The trip was to the Red Sea, and I didn’t
have to pay for anything; a week of free food, beer, sun, sea and sex… it sounded great. Unfortunately, M turned out to be a whinging, paranoid, jealous, desperate weirdo who stuck to me like a limpet. If I so much as looked in the general direction of any woman wearing a bikini (hard not to do on a beach) I got a tearful earful about being an ungrateful, lecherous bastard. I was her prisoner. In desperation for freedom I opted into everything going, all the water-sports, the diving, the trekking, seeking anything that she’d turn down and say “No, you go, I’ll just lie by the pool”. No such luck. I’d drink myself to oblivion every evening just to avoid having sex with her.

The high point came on one of the excursions offered; a trek up Mount Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments. The idea was you climbed it at night, so as to watch the sun rise from the top. Sounded well cool. This
involved a couple of hours coach journey through the desert, a camel trek, and a 3 hour climb, leaving the hotel at 11pm. All of this sounded like it might just be too much effort for M, so I jumped at the chance. Alas, she insisted on coming too. Unfortunately, she neglected to mention that she suffered from BOTH night-blindness AND vertigo, so perhaps climbing a mountain in the dark wasn’t the best idea.

Things began to go wrong on the coach. We picked up another party from a nearby hotel, amongst whom was a very friendly and pretty girl who insisted on talking to us. Any attempt at a response to her conversation from me was met with an elbow in the ribs from the jealous bitch I was saddled with.
When we finally arrived at the drop-off we hiked to the camel-station where noisy Bedouin tried to encourage us to get on their camels. It was a confusion of darkness and torches, campfires, roaring and charging camels, shouting Bedouin, and about 150 tourists in several parties, and we quickly got separated from our group. As soon as I mounted my camel, the guide rushed us away as he wanted to join a party that was just leaving for the trek up the lower slopes. I looked around in vain for M, but couldn’t see her, so assumed that she was on the camel behind and that she would catch up
at one of the many stopping points.

The actual trek up the mountain was one of the most magical events of my life, and I heartily recommend it to anyone, the swaying camels, the darkness, the cries of the Bedouin, the millions of stars… best of all, I was free, if only for a short while. Eventually, another camel joined mine, and it was occupied by the pretty girl from the coach. We chatted, and
started to get on rather well. Eventually, we reached the point where the camels could go no further, and we alighted ready for the last part on foot. We decided to sit down and wait for the rest of our party, while we continued to chat. Over an hour later, M stumbled into view, blinking like a mole and being led by a middle-aged German, at precisely the moment when the pretty girl was giving me her email address. M was incandescent with rage, and I had to wait a good half hour before I could even begin to get a word in. It transpired that when her camel reared up to it’s full height, M’s vertigo had kicked in and she had had to get off, leaving her alone and in the dark (I had the only torch), and having to make her way up on foot. She was exhausted, bruised, bitter, humiliated and
furious, and had only managed to make it up out of fear of being left behind. We finally made it to the top, and watched the sun rise in silence, for which I was thankful, as it would have spoiled the sheer beauty of it to have her whining continue.

The trip down was even worse. As if actually having M with me wasn’t bad enough, now the sun had risen meant that she could see the steepness of the mountain we had to climb down. Her vertigo meant she got dizzy on virtually every rock higher than your foot and she had to be coaxed and cajoled and
cursed to take even the smallest step. To make matters worse (for M at least) the pretty girl stayed with us, chatting gaily, helping M and leaping from rock to rock with the grace of a gazelle, which must have really annoyed M even more.

I needn’t go on. The relationship did not survive the holiday. We parted at Gatwick airport (where she called me a sponging freeloader!) and I never saw her again. And nothing happened with the pretty girl either.

Robert