Random Living in Abu Dhabi

I really appreciate the variety of activities that this desert has sprung up.

Sometimes I go dune bashing on ATVs.

Or skip the four-wheelers and just use my feet.

I also have the option of going to more civilized places, like a posh roof bar in Abu Dhabi with my frisbee mates.

And for a little local entertainment, I can check out the bowling scene, complete with Emiratees in dishdashes, in my tiny tony of Madinat Zayed.

Outdoor adventure is usually a big bonus to living out this way. In the north of the Emirates, Fujariah has some lovely mountain oasises that make for great exploring.

I've taken first steps to a new hobby and earned my scuba diving license. Now I just have to book a dhow (ship) trip with some friends and see all the wonders of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf.

With just about six weeks left of my academic year, I'm hoping to score some more fun before I set off for my summer travel: Beirut, Cyprus, Syria, and Turkey all before I land State-side again.  Whoo!

Winter Time Means Camping

As I might have hinted, there isn't a whole lot going on in the UAE unless you make it happen. It's a good thing that I've a motivated individual that likes adventure. Getting into my new backyard has really made for exciting trips and makes me feel like I'm a part of this country. Consequently, I go camping, a lot.

Why I love camping:

Relaxing'!

People!

FIRE!

Silliness!

MORE FIRE!

Between October and April, I went camping at least ten weekends . It's no record, but I loved it loved it loved it.

Bahrain...Check!

Although I don't have three day weekends as I once enjoyed on my grad student schedule, I am afforded super cheap airfare that always seems be perfectly coordinated with my teaching hours. 

My second Gulf country was Bahrain. I spent a terrific weekend with two travel buddies, Blair and Milad, and met up Rex and his good friend Amy.  As a recent Saudi-Bahrain transplant, Amy hosted us for the weekend. Bahrain is the party place for all the Saudis that cross its border. It's a haven filled with booze and uncovered women. CRAZY! This trees that live beside the Gulf outside of Amy's apartment can attest to all the party that happens in Manama.

In fact, Bahrain even boasts Ric's Kountry Kitchen. A fantastic place for any American ex-pat. After an evening out, brunch is the best thing that can happen in life.

Besides fantastic night/day life, Bahrain sports some fine souq shopping.  I love getting lost in the mazes of leather shoes, baby toys, hardware, and kitchen ware.

At this shop, I found some delightful camel decorations that are now proudly hanging on my front door.

After walking the souq, getting turned around a million times, we reunited and enjoyed some tea. Rex is really happy about all the sugar they put in his cup, he's giddy.

The next day, Blair, Milad, and I charge ourselves up for some whirlwind tourism. Despite its small size, Amy's travel book claims that there are 101 things for tourists to do in Bahrain. We take up challenge and cross out 11 in about five hours, of which I will tell you of a select few... 

First/second stop: The Oil Museum and first oil pump in the Gulf (check!) Look at all that oil excess burning away!

This made history (in some small circles, it is still remembered).

Next up: The Tree of Life. Despite Amy's warning that we'd never find it. We did. As we witnessed, this tree is the only one of its kind and grows in the desert without any other signicant growth around it. However, there are some American tanks glowering not too far behind it.

This is how you navigate Bahrain...

Satisfied with our success, we take a detour from our very detailed map and end up sorting through pottery factories and ancient burial grounds. The cemetery could have been a construction site or home to very large moles, but we'll believe the book and check off number 73.

Around the bend, we crossed off this old fort from our tourist list. Qal'at al Bahrain was perfect in the afternoon for a leisure viewing and afford great vistas of the city.

Soon, we put our tourist badges away and joined up a bunch of Navy dudes for a barbeque (it happens). Amy put on her Tex-Mex chef hat and cranked out a fiesta feast like no other.

It was a perfect end to a great weekend in Bahrain. I wouldn't be surprised to find myself back there at some point for another weekend get-away!

New Years, YAH!

A certain catalyst by the name of Rex brought me out to the Middle East. Saudi, as my next door neighbor to the west, is about 90 kilometers from my home in Madinat Zayed. With a reliable four-wheel drive and decent tires, Rex and I are about seven hours drive apart. Which isn't that far considering it was my bi-monthly drive home to Virginia from Brooklyn. Upon arrival to Abu Dhabi, I waited for the knock on my door from Rex to borrow a cup of sugar, or get some bacon (which is available here in grocery stores, but not in Riyahd). After much scheming and date haggling, Rex and I finally decided that New Years would begin our visiting hours.

I thought the beach, dancing and bubbly at mid-night would be ideal for bringing in 2010, but that didn't happen. Despite the lack of beach, there was a lot of sand. That's what the desert gets ya, but at least Rex brought presents.

Previously, I've camped in Liwa near Tal Moreeb, the highest sand dune in the UAE. It's a gorgeous drive out, wavy desert plains give way to sloped hillsides frames in palms, and then the landscape rises to sky rocketing sands that reflect red in the sunset. Perfectly lovely, but a bit noisy as it is many an Emiratee's joy to roll out quad bikes and ATVs that blast engine noise into the otherwise serene quiet. So, it's time for a change, so Hmeem called our names with the promise of zero traffic charging through the dunes.  Deal, yah'la, let's go!

Packing up the car was no easy feat. Mostly because the 10 cubic feet of truck space I have in the back of my Volkswagon is taken up with fire wood (can't savage the forest for branches folks, deciduous just doesn't play here).  Plus, I'm camping with Rex, so, we're gonna cook us up a feast like no other, shoo. 

The desert was absolutely gorgeous all night. The full moon illuminated the entire landscape and it looked like daylight in a hazy cloud. And I'm pretty sure that was the effect, even without the bubbly at midnight.

The next morning we made a delicious Southern breakfast complete with blackeyed peas for good luck and some green spinanch for, well green. Then we set back down the road and rounded out our New Year's Day with rearranging some abandoned tires.

 Perfect.

Outta Baku Is Where the Real Adventures Happen, or Don't Part III

Our third site out of the city proved to be less than ideal. 1. We were tired. 2. We're were fed up with paying for a crummy taxi. 3. The attraction was probably set-up to lure the 27 tourist that come every year. Lame Azerbaijan, laaaaame.

But, still, fire shooting out of the side of clay hill is pretty great.

 

After about twn minutes of muddy clay and fire, we hopped back in our cab, and then we were toured about a nasty salt lake.

 

And that's where that adventure ended, us cranky, and no midgets or cool rocks. Maybe next time?

Outta Baku Is Where the Real Adventures Happen, Or Don't Part II

Our guide book told us that this was a must-see of Azerbaijan, the list isn't very long, so we made it a priority. Our cabbie gallantly retraced our tracks back to the main road, and we set off to find the petroglyphs. However, the guy didn't know where he was going.

However he did take us to see some pretty cool rocks...but the not-famous rocks. Still, super pretty.

While exploring the landscape, the midget popped up again, and gave us directions to the real historic site. We pile in the car again, and we're off!  Ten minutes down the road we see a sign!  A real sign telling us that there is a tourist area. Woo, what's up Baku?!

We pay the entrance fee, and the fee to take pictures, and the fee for the tour. It was about 20 manat for the three of us, our cabbie got to join in for free.

Our tour guide at the site was hilarious. Probably the highlight of the excursion, mostly because I couldn't stop laughing when he would ask us ridiculous questions about facts that he has memorized and retold to people for the last ten years. "What animal is there?" Molly: Erg, a goat?  "No! There are no goats here, this a horse!"  He was disappointed in our lack of learning, take your best guess at this one:

The stones themselves were pretty cool because they were super old. In particular there was the tamborin stone, which was not carved with people or boats, rather, you could just bang on it. And really, who doesn't like to hit stuff with rocks??

Our tour guide gave us our 10 manat worth of tour, and then some. After an hour of tsking and a laundry list of facts about the age and content of each pictograph, we're were spent.  We hopped back in the car and called Evan to praise his glorious skills, no other tour guide was as excellent as he.

Outta Baku Is Where the Real Adventures Happen, or Don't Part I

PART I
In most places I've traveled, municipalities are pretty good at building up its hotspots to get the most out of its tourists' bucks. Well, considering that Azerbaijan issued a whopping 27 tourist visas in the entire year of 2007, I wasn't really surprised when investigating ways to get out into the countryside of Baku, no one really knew how to get there or what was even there. Uncertainly aside, Jill, Molly and I left our friend Evan to Fulbright his day away while we took off to discover the mud volcanoes and petroglyphs of the country.

We hired an unofficial cabbie at a decent rate to take us about 100 kilometers north to the region of Gobastan. I think we were saved from getting ripped off on the price not because he wasn't a licensed driver, but because he was the friend of the nephew of the guy who sold me some postcards from USSR... Of course, we're were so pleased!!

So for 80 manat, we packed into the back of a BMW sedan from about 1980.

This car was a champ and its driver decided that I in fact did speak German after I responded "Nien!" to the question if I knew the language. In fact,  the extent of my Duetch is exclusive to only vital vocabulary. For example, ente, beugal party, bier  and the ever helpful phrase: "Ich bin Berliner" (thanks to Rex and JFK for that very practical language knowledge on ducks, gang bangs, beer, and I am a donut). Even if our languages weren't common, we got along just fine over paved highways passing defunct oil fields, miles of pipeline, and some scrubby landscape.

As we began to edge out of the city into the doggie outskirts, our cabbie pulled over at a dank shop, exchange some words, and stuffed his pocket full with a wad of cash.  Then, just twenty minutes down the highway, we pull off again, he has some words, stuffs a hand in his pocket, and off we go.  Twice more ten minutes down the road, but now it's exclusively gas stations.  Hmm, mafia? Oil change? Not quite sure, but when we pulled over to talk to the midget sitting in his heap of a car, we decided between the three of us that this guy had no idea where he was going. Our hypothesis was confirmed once we cruised four-wheel style into the countryside: no roads! just sheep and peasants!

After a good twenty minutes of hard core driving suited only for off-road vehicles and some advice from the locals, we spot a plateau that seems like there might be something there.  (I know many of you are asking, "Why didn't you just follow the signs to the mud volcanos?? The answer is simple, there aren't any signs. Please...) Although the elevation and angle would have been a challenge for a Jeep, Azeri cranked the wagon down to third gear and huffed and puffed our way up the dirt path.  What a good German auto, we made it, despite all the backwards slipping and sliding.


And so the tremendous sight greeted us!

If anything can be said about the less than magnificent but ridiculous mud volcanoes, it is delightful.  There's nothing quite like standing around watching the earth ooze out some bubbly grey fart. Check out this action.


Then it dries up, and gets all cracked and flaky.

We played in the mud, and after caking our shoes (and Molly's face) with mud,

 

we were ready for part two of the days agenda: old rocks.

Way to Go King

Baku has it's charms, I've said it and I mean it. For example, the major tourist highlight is the Maidien Tower.  There are several conjunctures about the true purpose of the castle-esque structure, amongst these, it might have been a strategic watch tower to spy incoming enemy ships on the Caspian. Then again, it might have been a stubby astrological study. Oooor, it could have been a father's gift to his daughter, which is the best story. Ready?!

It's fabled that back in the day, the ruler of Baku fell madly in love with his pubescent daughter and asked for her hand in marriage. Being an obedient daughter and a little creeped out, she didn't refuse nor accept. The clever gal requested that daddy build her a tower high enough so that she could look out on all the land in his possession. So pop hopped to it, and constructed a cut stone tower, some 800 feet tall, and thick thick thick (that's what she said! Sorry mom, couldn't resist). After years of construction, the daughter climbed the spiral steps up to the observatory deck and promptly threw herself off to her death.  I'm sure solid parenting would have prevented that, but at least the king got a monument in his city if he didn't get the bride of his loins.

Intrigued by the story, Molly, Jilly, and I took a five minute walk from 1000 Camels Not-a-Hostel Anymore, and paid our 70 cents (student discount for all!) and explored the city's architectural masterpiece. We mostly just flicked our cameras at each other though...

The tower afforded great views of the city.

We could have stayed up there for the rest of the sunset, but we headed out when it got cold. Shoo, we're desert people now, we can't take the chilly wind!!