Dubai DesertSafari

Tuesday 20th October

Dubai Desert Safari

Not much sleep – must be the excitement as our journey nears its end. Mary had a great idea to fill in the time – let’s go to the Dubai Mall – brand spanking new – loaded with the top name shops and products: jewellery, bags and boots, dresses (the Italians were clever – there were shoes shops right to our terminal plane embarkation point, finishing with Gucci) – but in Dubai everything is new and whatever glitters is gold and diamonds. Also included in the mall was a 20 metre high aquarium full of sharks, sting rays and a big slow lazy groper – yep just alongside the skate rink. Apparently desert sands sell cheap and there is plenty of sand about – if for example we were going to move Chadstone into a corner here we would have to be careful not to lose it. But the recession is hitting Dubai hard – airport taxi queues are down from 3-4hours to 20minutes and the mall was very empty of customers which meant that every shop assistant (3 or 4 per shop including the supervisor who was in charge of spotting & allocating potential customers to appropriate shop assistants very politely saying, “hello” and “thank-you” and “enjoy your day”. Anyway to cut a long story short after saying “no” to Mary’s suggestions for shirts and shoes for 8 weeks - i relented and Mary bought me a pair of funky shoes and shirt and a groovy clutch purse(for herself) as a memory of this place.

Then a taxi back and a bite to eat before our Arabian Adventure Guide picked us up for our Dubai safari. Shahid our Emirate guide was full of energy and could barely contain his mounting excitement as we picked up 2 more Aussies and a young Brazilian woman whilst pointing out examples of Dubai’s progress including a ten kilometre Camel Racing Training Track, the beginnings of a rugby stadium way out in the desert, a tennis stadium and many more projects – which are moving very slowly at the moment due to the crisis – but no matter – it will all get sorted out as we travelled around the world’s tallest building at 880 metres high. And then we arrived at the 250 kilometre desert conservation park and our camels. Luckily, we left the camels behind and entered with 19 other 4xwheel drive vehicles for a serious 60 minutes of sand dune bashing. It was a very exciting time as we slid and soared and nose-dived over the desert dunes stopping at points for photo opportunities. Before arriving at our Bedouin camp site for a barbeque dinner and some lovely entertainment by a very confident, laughing, happy belly dancer – really you just had to clap and laugh with her as she wriggled energetically non-stop for about 30 minutes.

Only one mishap to report was that Mary lost her second pair of glasses – but really it all makes sense – we reckon her first pair of glasses have dropped into the Grand Canal in Venice and it appears the desert sands have swallowed the second pair – so of course it all makes sense and is very appropriate – to lose something when confronted by a brand new environment for the first time – yep the experience is saying lose the glasses and feel the vibe hahaha.

Home soon – about to head to airport in the next 45 minutes. See you soon, thanks for sharing, love Mary and Dick.