American University of Sharjah: Fall 2008: Thursday-Monday, 11-15 September 2008

This past weekend, my friends and I decided to explore the UAE. Thursday night (beginning of the weekend) we went into Dubai for dinner at Irish Village. A lot of people from campus were there and we stayed there very late. We spent the night at a villa in Dubai owned by one of Bader's friends. This house was amazingly well decorated and beautiful. It had a pool, which was cooled excessively so that it was a bit too cold. We spent the night there and then got up early in the morning to head south to Fujairah.

On the way, we stopped for breakfast at a gas station which was very poorly supplied. We couldn't get any hot food because the gas station refused to turn on the machines, saying it was company policy to keep the machines off during the day during Ramadan. So I ended up having bread and a fruit salad for breakfast, which was not the best breakfast I've ever had.

Further down the road, we stopped at a Friday souk which is a market only open on Fridays. Like all the ther souks I have been to, this one was composed of dozens of stores all selling the exact same thing, which here happened to be fruit, plants, and carpets. It was a much more normal souk, however, than the ones in the city of Sharjah, which have become more Westernized. Kendal bought a pillow covering for 40 dirhams which she batered down from 100, though when they came to give her the change, they tried to get an extra 10 dirhams from her. The guy who took her money was different from the guy who gave her the change. Basically, they tried to rip her off. Of course, we all got upset and refused to leave until they gave her proper change or a refund. Eventually, they gave her the change and we were on our way.

At this point, mountains had started to appear, which are a nice disruption to the flat desert. We stopped at a scenic overlook to take pictures. All the wadis (small streams) are tried up right now since it is the end of summer, so our view was very dry and plain. It was expansive though, and I can only imagine how nice it must look with water running through.

Finally, we got in the car for the last part of the trip. We ended up in Al Aqqa, which is just south of Dibba, just north of Fujairah. Our plans were to camp out on the beach, so naturally we went to the first beach we could find. It was in the shadows of the Meridian Hotel, but we were far from hotel property. Bader was driving a E-class Mercedes and his friend was driving a BMW sports car, so I'm not exactly sure what made us think driving along the beach would be a good idea, but we did it any. I'm sure you can guess what happens next. The stable, compacted sand road he were on quickly and instantly disintegrated into a foot deep of fine sand and the Mercedes sank. Of course, this was right around noon and its was abnormally hot and humid on Friday, so attempting to push a car out of sand at this time was not an enjoyable experience. Among our several misguided attempts to free the car, we tried to dig the car out, tried placing thin wood under the ties, digging with and then losing the wrench we would need should we want to tow the car out, tried to lift the car with the jack and then push it out, and finally we tried to tow the car by its wheels using the BMW.

Kay, Kendal, and I, being slightly more logical and slightly less proud than the guys, realized the pointlessness of our efforts about half way through. After trying unsuccessfully to convince the guys to give up, we sat in the air-conditioned car while they continued to fail. Finally, they came to our realization as well and we all went to the beach to relax.

Turns out we couldn't have chosen a worse beach. It was trash-filled and the oceans was a rock bed. Still, I had a mask and snorkel, so the rocks were interesting to explore and had a lot of fish and other life. We stayed on the beach all afternoon, and as luck would have it, several 4WD vehicles ended up driving through the beach, which I'm beginning to realize is a big past-time around here. Anyway, we flagged down two of the SUVs and within ten minutes had the Mercedes out. Obviously, this is what we should have done in the first place.

As night began to fall, we started to gather firewood and set up camp. We had to wait until sunset before we could get food since no restaurants are open during the day due to Ramadan. To occupy ourselves, we decided to climb one of the mountainous hills that bordered our campsite. This was fun and all until rock avalanches started falling on us. After getting hit in the knee with a fairly big rock, I decided there were smarter things I could be doing and stopped climbing. Only Bader made it to the top, which he did very quickly and in sandals. Finally, night came and we went into town to a pizza place for dinner since the majority of our food had melted in the intense heat. We also had to restock on water since we had gone through most of it sweating as we tried to free the Mercedes. After dinner, Bader's friend and Kay went back to Dubai since neither one wanted to spend the night. Another person from school, Max, met up with us at this point and we all went back to start the night.

The trash-filled beach did have its benefits. There was plenty of wood around to burn, and we even found lighter fluid and coals, which made starting the fire very easy. Of course, in the intense heat of the desert that last even after nightfall, no one wanted to be near the fire, but its light was welcomed. Around 11, we noticed light far out on the beach and went over to find a whole bunch of locals playing volleyball. During Ramadan, a lot of people stay up late at night and sleep during the day. Night becomes a time for socializing, and these people were using it to play volleyball. They had their own generator and lights, so it was a well lit field. Max ended up playing with them, and though Kendal and I wanted to, Bader told us it would probably not be the best idea since we are girls and girls don't normally participate in late night volleyball games. Even when they invited us to play (we were standing in the shadows so it was hard to see us) one of the other players said "shame on you, their girls" to the one who invited us to play. Anyway, once Max was done, we all went to leave but before we could do that, the players loaded us up with water, which I guess they probably assumed we needed.

After that, we stayed up a little while longer, went for walks on the beach, played cards, and talked. We had a tent, but everyone ended up sleeping outside, hoping for a light breeze. By early morning, I was covered in condensation and freezing, but up until then I was very hot. We got up at sunrise around 6:30, packed up camp, and left. It took about 20 minutes for the sun to actually rise above the smog level and become visible. As soon as it did, the temperatures rose rapidly, and we were thaknful we were headed out.

We got back to campus at 8 in the morning. I showered quickly and went right back to bed, still exhausted. Saturday night, I went to an iftar (breaking of the fast) one of my classmates was holding. She lives with her parents in faculty housing. About 15 students went, and it was a lot of fun. The food was amazing; I can't even begin to described how good it was. I stayed until 10:30 though I wanted to stay even longer because the conversation and company was so good, but I was falling asleep and still needed to do homework.

Class so far this week has been pretty rough. I had a map quiz in one class. The teacher told us the locations that would be on the quiz and then proceeded to change her mind without telling us and test us on different locations. So needless to say, I did not do well on that quiz. I've basically just been trying to do catch-up these past two days since I got no homework done this weekend. I think things are finally started to settle down now though. It's just about dinner time now, so I'm going to go cook something. Until next time...

-Lindsay

Beginning of the Mountains: