This was honestly one of my favorite days in all of the UAE! And guess what? Maricar was our guide again!
Our first, and probably most important stop was the Al Ain Oasis.
This 3,000 acre site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
You're never going to believe it, but guess what? Our lovely friends were once again in the same area as we were! We got to enjoy part of the day with them while we learned about the date palms.
There are around 147,000 date palms here at the Al Ain Oasis!
The Oasis has an underground irrigation system called a falaj that starts deep underground at the water table and then relies on the ground to slope gently so that the level water aqueduct piping eventually emerges from the underground.
Maricar and one of the Oasis employees drove us down the alley ways in a little golf cart. Which was nice because it was once again a thousand degrees.
They have little bags that surround the dates so that they can catch them before they fall to the ground and rot.
These things were INSANELY good. They gave us a few while we were there.
THEN... this guy climbed up this tree IN BARE FEET.
Dude, look! He's way up there! And he walked up there in bare feet!
I'm all like, "Oh please don't! You're going to hurt your feet!" And then they said, "Oh no, it's fine! He can't actually wear shoes because it causes him to slip!"
I got a lime! This was the best smelling lime in the entire world. And I don't even like limes.
Maricar took this cute picture of my Mom taking a picture of me on a golf cart in the Al Ain Oasis.
It certainly felt like an oasis here - I appreciated the quiet.
Just outside of the front gate is a little museum about the Oasis. As you walk to it, there are examples of all of the types of plants that can grow in the oasis such as this aloe.
Cats of Al Ain!
After the visit to the Oasis, we drove around Al Ain on the way to grab some lunch.
Al Ain was really pretty. I liked the modern style buildings, and it was very clean. The light poles were really pretty and the roads were so nice!
Stop here and fill your bellies! We stopped and had a really nice lunch at this hotel.
After lunch, we went to the Cattle Market Masjid Al Ain. This was kind of an adventure. First... you just couldn't drive in. You had to check in with a guard in order to go in. It's not a tourist attraction. It's actually a real livestock market. So you can't just take pictures without being with someone - and of course, you can't take pictures of people.
BUT. We got to see the camels! And there were even baby camels!
These camels were savage. This one was excited to take a twinsie selfie with me. And then I realized... I look just like a camel.
The camel souk mainly sells camels for racing or for breeding.
I don't know anything about camels but I like to pretend this is a mama and her growing baby loving on each other. Kind of like how I love on my Mama!
This guy really wanted his picture taken. And look at that little baby on the right!
So many stinky camels. Be glad you don't have smell-a-blog.
After we spent a bit of time with the camels, we went up to Jebel Hafeet which is a mountain that straddles the border of UAE and Oman.
Surprisingly, most of UAE is very flat. It's probably the second largest mountain in the UAE (behind Jabal Bil Ays which is also on the Oman border but much farther north.) It's really an interesting shape because it's a north-south facing mountain with literally nothing on either side of it. And it definitely looks like Mars.
Situated near the base of Jebel Hafeet is a big green area full of parks such as Green Mubazzarah and Jebel Hafeet Park along with one of the properties that the Sheikh owns. This is the first in a series of three pictures (the most zoomed in of the three.)
You can see in every direction from Jebel Hafeet that it's flat. The term comes from the word "Hafit" which was a period of the Bronze Age in which some 5,000-year-old burial tombs from that period were found near the base of the mountain. This picture is slightly more zoomed out.
This is the most zoomed out picture of the three. You can definitely see that other than the oasis below, nothing really can grow here.
I'm pretty sure I stepped onto another planet here. Also, I prayed that there would not be any rocks falling on my head!
We were a bit disappointed to learn that the only restaurant (aka: bathrooms) at the top had been closed. Here is my mom walking toward the Oman border, which sits just on the other side of those gates and barbed wire.
Although it's a border to Oman, it's not open. And you're not really supposed to take pictures of it but I was pretty sure this was all I was ever going to see of Oman in my entire lifetime.
There is a Mercure hotel property near the top of Jebel Hafeet. Next time! There is also yet another royal family property (the round building behind me) up here. You can't blame them because the air temperature up here was MUCH cooler than down in Al Ain.
Beautiful and vast views of Oman and the UAE. Seriously, it looks like what you would imagine Mars would look like.
Panorama of the view westward into the sun from Jebel Hafeet.
I'm actually the blue dot on the far left - although we were not actually there, but were really right near the white line on the mountain, just to the southeast of the blue dot. You can see the border of the UAE and Oman and how close we were to it. You can also see that the mountain is surrounded by flat desert. I don't know why it was so fascinating to me to be so close to Oman. I've heard it's a great country to visit! I'm definitely putting it on my list.
The desert that you see on the left is Oman. The border is just on the left side of that highway in the center.
Me and Maricar at the top of Jebel Hafeet. We really had a great time with her!
Me, Maricar and Mom. Triple M Threat.
Jebel Hafeet and all of it's glory.
Those mountains in the distance are actually in Oman. That town you see that's sort of in the foreground is the Al Dhahir community. Al Khirayr is the one of the far left (under the tallest part of the growing thunderstorm.)
Me pretending like my arm is in Oman, even though this was very clearly UAE ha ha.
THIS was one of the most spectacular things we saw - a billowing thunderstorm! (That actually is over Oman, I checked the radar later.)
Since they just don't get a lot of rain or thunderstorms here, it was so exciting to see this storm develop as we were on top of Jebel Hafeet. It's also really neat to watch it through the eyes of someone who lives there. In Florida, we get these every single day in the summer time. It's really no big deal, and is more of a nuisance than anything. But people here are very fascinated by rain because they just never see it!
One of the Sheikh's properties that we saw as we drove down the mountain. The mountain road is very nice - the road is meticulous and it has many twists and turns. Apparently wealthy people with expensive sports cars like to race up and down them!
I found that a lot of the rotaries in the southern part of Abu Dhabi Emirate had great art or interesting sculptures. I think it's the only place where people look forward to the next rotary!
This one said "Peace be with you!" And with your spirit!
In my quest to find the most expensive license plate on the way back to Dubai, I saw this one - 1351. He definitely paid some money for it, but judging by the Nissan SUV, he's not the richest person in the UAE. MEH!
But THIS was, BY FAR my very best picture of the day. Not only was this a really uncool Bentley SUV (ok that's an inside joke between me and my college bestie Kristin)... but it also had the 88 license plate! I shudder to think what this guy paid for this! Not only is it only two digits, but they're the SAME digits, making it even more special. Repetitive numbers, sequential numbers or numbers in a pattern (ie: 2345) make the plate more desirable. The letter in the front makes a difference, too (for example, anything starting with an A or a Z is expensive.) Let's just say this: Z 90 is for sale for $762,000 right now. (Queue heavy eye roll.) I'm gonna guess this was north of $600k. Not for the car. For the license plate.
I watched that thunderstorm over Oman as we left Al Ain and headed back to Dubai.
I totally laughed when I saw this picture of my foot in the back of Maricar's car as we cruised back to Dubai. I am going to start posting more pictures of the dumb stuff I accidentally take pictures of because it's really funny to me. (Notice Maricar - and all of our guides and drivers for that matter - came well equipped with cold waters for our trip!)
Although it was a long day and we had such fun, I was kind of sad to see our hotel (although hello up there Rikesh - I see you slinging drinks up at the pool bar!) I was sad because this meant our incredible trip to the United Arab Emirates was OVER!
Until next time, Al Ain! I truly enjoyed your Oasis and your laid back manner!
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