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| We are about 300 yards off shore here and standing! |
Gail and I had a three day weekend and our friends Dan and Karen invited us to go to Danat Jebel Dhanna resort, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Abu Dhabi.
It was a long drive through pretty barren land, but the reward is an amazing little resort, with a great pool and grounds and very courteous staff.
There is an island 9 km off the coast that you can visit for the day, or if you want to shell out some serious cash, you can stay at the resort on the island, which is named Sir Bani Yas. There is also a animal preserve, and a marine preserve.
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| Hotel Lobby |
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| Gail wading with our hotel in the background |
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Because of the heat (105+) we decided to skip the mountain biking and lay at the pool instead. It was great to relax, and because the hotel is small, it never felt crowded at all.
After our first full day, we went to a great Italian place in the hotel and had an amazing meal, and some top notch red wine. Dan is a geologist and is really into artifacts, so he and Karen spent part of the day in the desert searching for stone artifacts from the time when man was migrating from the African continent, through what is now the Middle East, and ending up in Mesopotamia.
My first react was, "whatever, take lots of water"
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| Amazingly clear water! |
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| Hotel Grounds |
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| Gail in her element |
When he got back though he was smiling from ear to ear, and showed us his findings. Sitting in the sand he found several stone artifacts dating back to around 200,000 years ago. These are tools that were worked by man to serve as hammering and scraping tools. It is believed that they would use them for scraping meat off bones and breaking bones open to get at the marrow. One look at them and I was hooked!
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| Dan Carpenter and I with our 200,000 year old artifacts |
They were going out the next morning to visit another site, and I jumped at the opportunity to tag along. After breakfast we loaded up and drove 20 minutes west. Dan angled off the highway and down a dirt (sand) road and through a gate that clearly told us not to pass. Something about live ammo training, yada, yada. What could I do though? I'm just he passenger.
Dan stopped and we jumped out. There is Chert (the name of the stone) everywhere. It is extremely hard and sound like metal when you smack it together. The key was to find pieces that have obvious markings on them. We found lots of "cool" pieces, which Dan calls "Leaverite", meaning, leave it here. We also scored several tooled pieces! It's addicting, and Dan had to pull me away so we could escape the heat and get back in the pool.
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| View from our room |
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| From our room |
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| Little eel like fish sitting outside their cave |
That afternoon Dan and Karen went way out from shore and did some snorkeling in water that was just barely over there head. The next morning the tide was so far out, that Gail and I waded out to the same area and were standing in chest deep water. I grabbed the mask and snorkel, but there wasn't much to see. Near shore, as the tide comes in the hot sand warms the water to a point that it is like wading through a hot tub. Not refreshing! After the final couple of hours at the pool, we loaded up and headed back to Abu Dhabi for a nice Mexican dinner with Dan and Karen before calling it a day.
We had a great weekend despite the heat and a big thanks to Dan and Karen for including us!
