The alarm call comes much too early at 1am. I head down for some tea and then to the mini-bus for the short ride to the start of the walk up Mount Sinai, the location believed by the three major religions, to be where Moses received the ten commandments from god. No such grand scheme here: by leaving at this ungodly hour I should see the sunrise from the top.

I remember when I was at school doing history I loved the Romans. They were so advanced and yet had these brutal elements, a combination that I found fascinating. Even now I continue to be amazed by Roman ruins. Nothing we build now seems to last more than a few decades yet this massive, two thousand year old empire still has buildings standing.

[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephendarlington/10817487986/ ““No Camels & Horses” sign, Dahab, Egypt by stephendarlington, on Flickr”)

I always have immense difficulty choosing my next travel destination. The bottom line is that I’d happily visit almost anywhere I’ve not been before. And even then, many of the places I have been to I’d happily go back to. With around two hundred countries in the world this presents a problem. Then you need to combine this with the fact that I love reading about travel — books, brochures, back issues of Wanderlust — and you can easily believe that it can take me months to decide where to travel to next.

Last weeks PhotoFriday theme was “Travel.” If you’re observant you’ll notice that I didn’t make an entry despite most photography on my site being travel related and that’s because… I was travelling at the time!

In the next few days (maybe weeks depending on how busy I am!) you’ll be seeing some of my experiences in Jordan and Egypt. Keep your RSS reader primed…