Abu Dhabi Air Race

After a long (by Abu Dhabi standards) hiatus, the Red Bull air show returned to Abu Dhabi.  Neither of us is a big fan of motor sports, but since the show was just outside our door, we had to take a look. 

The competition is based on timed circuits that pilots take, one at a time. (Thank goodness -- one of us is quite worried about air collisions...but more on that later.) Pilots have to navigate between cones either vertically or horizontally.  The cones are set apart two meters wider than the planes' wingspans.

The weather was perfect for the competition, and crowds were gathered for picnics, parties, and general spectating. After the competition, the Red Bull skydiving team landed in unison on the public beach, and UAE pilots put on an air show for the crowd.

The show was fun, but terrifying. Perhaps most disconcerting was a stunt called "crazy flying," which involves flying *as if about to crash*. The mere fact that this style of performance is appealing says a lot about taste in the Emirates. 

Watching near-death flight stunts was quite exhausting, so it was off to Lebanese Flower, an Abu Dhabi staple, for banana smoothies, falafel, shrimp sandwiches, and of course, mixed grill.

Camping at Jebel Yibir

Despite a previous trip to the Northern Emirates, it was still odd to get an email from a friend suggesting we take a trip to the highest peak in the UAE, Jebel Yibir.  Isn't the highest point in Dubai?

It takes about three hours to get to the middle of nowhere, UAE.  (A bit less if you're not particular about the view.) To get there, take the bypass road to the Dubai bypass road. Despite the double bypass you will have performed, expect to find traffic. But there is happier traffic, as well: dozens of camels happily lolling beside the road.  Then, pass through a few small towns, on the lookout for any goats who may wish to cross the road. If you're hungry, stop off at one of the many Pakistani restaurants, where you can get delicious biryani, daal, fresh bread and tea with condensed milk -- but you'll have the wait until the Friday prayers are over.  Even the "24 hour" restaurants are abandoned during prayer time.

After some wadi wandering, we found a flat place for our tents.  It must have been a construction site at some point -- we found pallets and old metal doors with the UAE falcon, which were useful wind screens for the fire.

We went for a scramble downhill to a wadi, and up a cliff face the next day. Near the wadis there are amazing wildflowers.

From the wadi, we scrambled up our mountain...

...from which we had views of both the east and west coasts of the UAE.

On the way home we stopped off at some crazily orange dunes on the way to the UAE's (heavily irrigated) farmland. The dunes first appeared as a deep orange glow about the horizon....and slowly materialized, into burnt orange sand, stretching in every direction.

Dubai Museum

Moving from the Bay Area to Abu Dhabi was a shock to the system.  However, Abu Dhabi is completely tame compared to the Dubai, the Wild West of the 21st century.  In Dubai, the buildings are taller, the traffic is worse, and brunch doesn't start until 6pm. We couldn't very well let our prized guests from Sweden, Katie and Nik, leave without a visit to this...place.  Here are they are, in stunned (and befitting) tourist mode. 

After a trip to the Dubai Mall (biggest in the world, of course), we took the Dubai Metro (biggest or most something, probably) to the Dubai Creek, home of the gold, spice, utensil, and textile souqs.  We found amazing jewels, including this very large bracelet.

The spice souq is on the Deira side; we rode an abra to cross Dubai Creek to get to the Bur side of the creek, where we stumbled into the Dubai Museum, which we had looked for but never found.

There were interesting exhibits of old boats...

...luxury desert housing....

...and signs we weren't sure made sense at a museum.

It was a surprisingly large museum, and we ended up breezing through the last few exhibits.  But we'll be back.  Once we made it out, it was time to grab dinner at Potbelly's (!) and retrieve our car at the mall, which doubtless is also the most crowded in the world.