Mountains, oases and wadis

Today we have a daytrip, with a pick-up at 0830, to Buraimi Oasis and Al Ain via Hatta and Hajar Mountains. Our driver James, from Karnataka drove us through sandy dunes on the side of the motorway before entering more rugged territory.

At Hatta Fort, it was a brief stop as it was closed being Friday. The rugged scenery continued with mountains, oases, gorges and wadis. Some wadis were deep enough to swim in and others even suitable for diving.

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Our stops in Burami and Al Ain coincided with the extremely hot part of the day. We lost interest because of that, combined with the fact that both places were quite modern. It’s hard to be interested after the sights of Iran.

Buraimi is actually in Oman even though we didn’t have to go through any checkpoints. As a token of our visit to Oman, we took a photo at Buraimi Fort despite our low level of interest.

Our last stop was a so-called camel market which felt more like a camel farm. Maybe it’s because we have seen Imbaba Camel Market in Cairo back in 1992 with countless animals. A few penned camels here didn’t feel like a market.

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We took a different route back to Dubai, passing through very red or coral-coloured sand. Our tour had finished early perhaps due to the shortened (or non-) visit to Hatta Fort. It gave us a chance to rest before going to Bur Juman mall to check our emails.

We continued by taxi to Karama to have a final look for cellphones. Our two tour drivers had told us it was a good place for phones but we didn’t have much luck finding many shops.
After a short stop at the hotel, we continued to the Gold Souk once again. We were getting closer to making purchases for our phones and possibly a watch for Kim. We dwelled over our decision with a light dinner of kebab and fruit cocktail (mixed thick juice) before returning to buy phone each.

We followed up by more-or-less repeating the same meal and also tried a pomegranate juice. The latter was nice and refreshing but was slightly astringent. Perhaps an acquired taste?

To finish-up our first every stay in Dubai (excluding transits in the past), we took an abra across Dubai Creek in the night to enjoy the city’s illuminated skyline. It wasn’t as flash as the skyline of Hong Kong but still very nice. [Edit: Little did we know that Dubai would change so much in the coming years.]

We got back to the hotel by taxi around 2315, happy with our purchases and savings compared to New Zealand. We were in bed by midnight for a short night’s sleep because we have a morning flight at 0815 tomorrow!