Safa Park

Safa Park is one of the rare green patches that make Dubai a conceivable habitat for outdoor beings. From inside it, the metallic city glows gorgeously....

....until the occasional sand storm envelops all but the nearest towers. You can just barely see the Burj in this picture. 

What you can begin to grasp, though, is how many birds frequent the rare green spaces in Dubai. The park is full of birds (it is renowned for bird watching) in the sky, and soccer players on the ground, with field after field of games going.

As always, signage is ... curious. Someone managed to think up a fantastic term for "Parking." 

Liwa Oasis

After nearly a year of living in the desert, we finally made it to the desert proper!  Abu Dhabi consists of about 85% of the UAE by land mass, only a small portion of which is Abu Dhabi city.  Much of the inland area is known as the Empty Quarter, once the home of the Bedouin, and first mapped out by Wilfred Thesiger on foot in the 1940s, just as oil exploration was beginning.





The Empty Quarter is the largest sand desert in the world, but there are oases.

Oasis is a relative term -- there is a bit more sand than green.  The absence of the usual desert scruff means that the red sand can form incredible dunes.

The dunes are other-wordly -- they reminded us of Luke Skywalker's home planet. Apparently we aren't the first to think so; Star Wars was shot here in May.

In fact, the cast and crew rented out our entire hotel for a month.

It was very hot during the day, but grew more pleasant at sunset.  We scurried up some dunes to get the best view.

 We saw sand spiders....








...little lizards (too fast for our camera) and beetles.

But mostly just enjoyed playing in the beautiful sand formations as the sun set....and lolling in the warm dunes to watch the stars coming out. 

Heritage Village

Heritage Village is a free museum aiming to preserve traditional Bedouin crafts, and it's a lovely walk from our apartment along the waterfront. Why haven't we been yet? We aren't sure either. 

Perhaps it was the uncompelling signage that kept us away.

But we're glad we went in. We saw a camel....always a welcome sign to us...

...and a whole collection of swords. (In our endeavors towards furnishing our house, we've seen a lot of arms of various sorts prominently displayed on walls in people's houses. We have yet to buy any.)

There are boats being built...

...and pitchers for coffee (called Dallah, we think) being hammered. There are fewer and fewer people able to make the traditional Arabian pitchers, which require extensive handiwork for traditional shapes and patterns.

There was a room full of beautiful glass...

We especially liked the glass-animal bedecked perfume dispensers.

And there was a beautiful view of the Abu Dhabi skyline on a beautiful fall night. . 

Al Ain Zoo

After a nice dinner with friends on Thursday evening, we woke up on Friday without any particular plans.  A trustworthy tourist magazine suggested we visit the Emirates National Auto Museum (say yes to everything!).  Unfortunately, we missed a turn on the way there, and ended up halfway to Al Ain -- so we decided to go the whole way.  Al Ain is the second-largest city in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. It is a popular spot in the summer, because though it is even hotter than Abu Dhabi, it is less humid.  It is also more (naturally) verdant and has many oases.

The Al Ain Zoo is the best in the UAE, and we've been planning to go for ages.  Fortunately for us, the zoo started its winter hours this weekend -- meaning it stayed open during the day -- but sadly, they kept the summer weather. Curiously, they sell neither sunscreen, nor postcards (unless you're interested in high-end dino holograms, which we normally would be -- but at a zoo?).

The zoo has a large collection of animals native to the Arabian peninsula and northern Africa.  Some had some pretty incredible headgear, including the aptly named scimitar oryx.

Believe it or not, flamingos make their home in the UAE for a brief period of time on their way from Russia to Africa.  We saw some more permanent residents:

There were some giraffes living contentedly with some rhinos, with a beautiful mountain in the background.

Margaret saw her first ostrich up close:

And some hippos!

We had trouble finding the exit, so tentatively entered an unlabeled building near the entrance.  Turned out it had an exhibit on local birds.  Some of them looked like they'd been painted by Dr. Seuss.

The sand dunes on the drive home were beautiful. We are excited to take a camping trip once our sand tent arrives with the rest of our worldly possessions (this week - fingers crossed!).