Friday, December 6, 2019

Day 3 - Dervish in the Desert

The Air Canada saga continued when I woke up at 6am and attempted to get the website, the app or the customer service line to work.  These attempts remained unsuccessful.  We did eventually get a person to pick up at the Dubai Air Canada office who told us that they only way to get seats would be to go to the airport and speak to someone at the ticket counter. The frustrations from the day before bubbled up again and the morning was taking a turn for the worse.  We were still trying to figure out how to fit in the evening desert safari and a much shortened visit to Atlantis where we could focus on only the craziest water slides (yes, I know, first world problems).  Given the airline drama and the distance to and from Atlantis, we gave up on the idea of fitting it all in and decided to go with the safari, freeing up the morning for us to deal with our flight.

Desperate to get seats, and now having a few hours to kill, we made the decision to cab to the airport (only about 10-15 minutes away) and book our seats directly with Air Canada as instructed.  You may ask why the total desperation with getting seats assigned… as a reminder, this particular leg of our journey was a single 14.5 hour leg.  In coach.  The thought of middle seats or not sitting together or being at the back of the plane had me in a cold sweat.  Yes, we should have paid a few hundred dollars to confirm seats weeks earlier, but again, we've never had issues in the past and again, I hate wasting money.

We arrived at the airport and after a fruitless search for Air Canada’s ticket counter, we were informed that they do not actually show up until 3 hours prior to flight, so we were about 12 hours too early.  With renewed frustration, we left the airport and went to the taxi stand trying yet again to salvage the day.

We had been warned about luxury taxis in Dubai.  The luxury taxis cost about 5x what a normal taxi cost and we were told to avoid them – we are talking BMWs, not Lamborghinis - not that exciting.  So we stood in the general taxi line and the taxi guy pointed us to an open car - a BMW that did not appear to have a normal meter.  Not to be taken as a fool, I  got out and walked to the taxi guy and told him we wanted a regular taxi with a meter.  He assured me we were in a metered taxi and told us to get back in.  So we did.

Of course the meter started at 5x the normal start charge and it was running at a much faster rate because, as I knew, we were in a luxury taxi.  This wouldn't have been a big deal if we had just driven the 10 minutes to our desired destination.  But we ended up with the one person in Dubai who did not understand English (or chose not to) and had no idea how to get where we wanted to go - the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary.  We drove around the airport, on various highways, and through a huge industrial park, because apparently Ras Al Khor is also the hub of all import and export of fruit through Dubai and contains row after row of massive storage warehouses, and for whatever reason, our driver thought that is where two American tourists would want to hang out for the afternoon.  We did pass an exotic car auction lot which was kind  of cool - hundreds of cars on a dirt lot - in the quick view we had, we saw Ferraris, Porsches and a Duesenberg.

Finally, Damon had to pull up directions to the sanctuary on his phone while the driver followed along.  Our 10-minute ride took 40+ minutes and don't get me started on the surcharges.  Bring on more frustration.  In addition to not being super spontaneous, I hate wasting money.  This ride nearly killed me.

The wildlife reserve's main draw is flamingos.  I expected the reserve to be a park that we could walk around on paths and watch flamingos.  In reality, we were dropped off on the side of a busy road.  There was a small guard hut with one guard, and then an enclosed path about 100 yards long that led to an enclosed viewing blind with slits for viewing a flock of flamingos. 


Admittedly, the flamingo viewing was spectacular and we watched a hoard of hundreds of birds feed in unison squawking the whole time, but after about 15 minutes, we had pretty much seen all there was to see.  I later found out that there are actually three viewing blinds, but we didn't have a car and had no clue they were there. 

We walked back to the busy road with really no idea on how to get back to our hotel.  I had read that there was a bus, but we didn’t see any signs or any people who spoke English.  More frustration.  We finally hailed a taxi on the side of the road (of course it was another luxury) but this time we negotiated the rate ahead of time.  We were in no position to be picky since we had to be back at the hotel for our safari pick-up.  Didn’t want to miss that one again!

Flamingos swarming the food truck.
So as not to ruin the rest of the day, I decided that a comfort lunch was in order, which consisted of waffles for Damon and pizza for me.  With our sugar/fat mood elevators in place, we showered, packed up, checked out of the hotel, and waited for our safari pick-up.  We had the same concierge as the day before during our failed safari attempt, and he was familiar with our plight. He was very accommodating when I asked him to call the tour company to confirm pick up time, and when they were two minutes late, he kept calling until they picked us up (Hyatt rocks).


We squeezed into the third row of a Land Cruiser and took off. Our fellow guests were two couples – one from Germany and the other from Croatia.  I found it interesting that the only way they could communicate was in broken English.  We really take for granted that everyone will speak English when we travel.  One day I’d like to try a place where neither English or Spanish (we can get by) are spoken and we have to figure out how to communicate without words.  The thought of Damon trying to convey a thought with no words whatsoever would be endlessly entertaining.  Although he would probably just say Si and Gracias to everyone (yes, he did that by accident when we got to Dubai).  

We had a 45-minute drive to the desert – our first stop was a playground of sorts.  There are a bunch of desert safari tour companies and they each stop at the playground where guests are offered the option to rent dune buggies or ATVs and are let loose in a large fenced off area of the desert.  There is also a healthy supply of souvenirs for purchase.  Damon and I (who are we kidding, it was Damon) opted to rent the dune buggy.

Before handing us the keys, we sat through an intense training video where all necessary safety precautions were discussed and helmets were fitted and passed out.  Ha, no there wasn’t.  They walked us over to the dune buggy, handed us the keys, and said – be back in 20-30 minutes.  No helmets, no instructions, no nothing.  Damon cautiously felt out the dune buggy and slowly acclimated to our surroundings.  No he didn’t.  He took two seconds to get the lay of the land and then took off like a bat out of hell.  We were flying blindly over sand dunes in no time flat.


Now to give you some idea of what was going on here – the area was relatively large – maybe a few acres, although I have no idea what an acre looks like.  There were several fenced off areas, so not everyone was in the same area.  Our area easily had 50+ individual ATVs and a few dune buggies presumably with the same level of experience and safety training as us.  There are no set routes and no paths and there are sand dunes tall enough that you cannot see over them.  We had roll bars that I hung onto for dear life, and that is how I spent the next 15 minutes.

Damon gave up the driver spot to me because he convinced me that I would regret it if I didn't drive, so I had a chance to rev it up to about 20 miles per hour and putter around the outskirts of our area and out of harms way.  Actually, after a few minutes, I may have picked up some speed and flew over a few dunes until Damon started freaking out when I hit a dune sideways. 


Eventually my risk averse nature took over and I handed the wheel back to Damon.  When Damon, at full speed yelled “YEE HA - RIDE IT LIKE YOU RENTED IT” followed by “DONUTS IN THE DESERT” while spinning in sand circles, I got out of the buggy, and let him release more testosterone while I took videos.


Post playground, we piled back in the Land Cruisers (our guide had graciously asked one of the shorter couples to take the third row so Damon wasn’t bumping his head), and we drove into the desert.  We waited for our caravan of about 6-7 Land Cruisers to aggregate for safety reasons, and then we began our “dune bashing” adventure.  What is dune bashing?  Imagine driving (a professional driver) full speed over and around massive sand dunes, skidding over the tops, and sliding down them at a 45-degree angle while the tires are spitting up sand everywhere.  On one hand, it was crazy fun – I was in the middle hanging onto roll bars again having the time of my life.  The woman next to me would just let out a sad little "ooohhhhh" sounding groan every now and then while trying not to throw up.  She was clearly not enjoying herself.  Damon had a window seat and would just start randomly yelling “no no no” whenever it looked like his side was going to roll.  A little nauseating, but ultimate a rollicking good time.
Hard to get a decent shot, but this was sort of what it looked like

We stopped on the top of a taller dune to watch the sun set.  The tour company provided snowboards so we could sand-surf down the dunes



however, with the height of the dunes and the inherent wipe-out danger, plus the fact that the boards basically had no functioning bindings, they recommended (insisted) that we sit and slide down the dunes.  We are totally fake surfing in the pictures.

As per usual, Damon had a perfect run down the dune.  Mine, not so much as I completely wiped out and rolled head over heals down most of the dune.  Oh, the places I found sand later that night.  It was surprisingly difficult to walk back up the dune – the sand is so fine that it just kept slipping as I tried to walk up so I made almost no progress.  I did eventually crawl my way back up.






Our next activity was the sunset photo shoot.  Our guide, having done this at least one (or a million) times before, ordered us around into different romantic sunset poses. We gazed at the sun, we pointed at the sun, we held hands, we stood, we sat, we jumped, and for the grand finale we made a romantic hand heart surrounding the sun.  As Damon pointed out, I seem to be incapable of forming a heart as my hand heart is actually a “C”, thus confirming that I do not, in fact, have a single romantic bone in my body.






























Once the sun went down, we drove to a camp for dinner and a show.  The camp had a bunch of activities that we could partake in, but we are sort of lame so we did not partake in any.  We could take pictures in traditional Arabic dress, but how many people wore those clothes before us and how often were they washed?  We could smoke the Shisha pipes but I’ve never done that, didn’t know how it would affect me, and we were heading to a 14.5 hour flight.  Nope.  We could get henna tattoos, although thinking about work meetings killed that idea since I wasn’t sure how long they would last.  We could ride camels, but they looked so sad that we couldn’t do it.


We sat down to watch the show before dinner that consisted of several types of traditional Arabic dance starting with a whirling dervish. Yes, that is an actual thing – I looked it up.  A whirling dervish is hard to describe and hard to picture, but I’ll give it a go unless I can figure out how to load up a video.  Imagine a man in a tight suit made of hot pink material with silver stripes.  Over the pants, he wore a huge, thick, colorful, multi-layered set of skirts and I think a jacket or vest.  He also had a hat on that he took off and separated into rings that he made designs with while he twirled.  The music started and he started twirling.  Dude did not stop twirling.  I'm not sure what the differences is between twirling and whirling or spinning, but he did that for the entire act, which lasted about 10 minutes.  I later read that they can spin for 2 hours straight with 30-40 rotations per minute.  I want that guy at our next bat spin competition at the Memorial Day picnic. 


During the act and while he was spinning, the dervish started taking off layers.  Each layer would be twirled before it was ceremoniously removed and flung off stage.  About halfway through the act, he went all Elvis and pushed some buttons and his whole outfit lit up.  I’m talking full on Christmas lights on the whole she-bang.  And still he twirled.  Before his skirts came off, he twirled them above his head and they separated into a sort of mushroom (all lit up).  And then he finished in his hot pink and silver under garments.  All in all, a highlight of the night.

The second act was a young guy who twirled (whirled?) fire batons.  It is completely mesmerizing to watch fire twirlers and he was really good.  For the final pre-dinner act, both guys got back on stage.  The dervish put on a crazy death mask and a new skirt.  A song with the lyrics “dance with the devil” started and the fire guy lit the dervish's skirt on fire and the twirling started.  It was crazy cool – the skirt was totally on fire while the dervish twirled, and the fire guy started drinking lighter fluid and blowing huge fire bombs out of his mouth.  Pretty awesome.  We took a break for a big buffet dinner and then the final act, a belly dancer who did a few songs.  She did a lot of twerking and a lot of hair flipping.  I’ll take the twirlers and the fire dudes all day long.  Damon may agree to disagree as he was totally mesmerized by the belly dancer.


After the show, we headed back to the cars.  Our group took a while to re-assemble, which started to freak me out a bit, because we had a deadline of 9:30pm to be back at the hotel to ensure we could get to the airport to make our flight.  And oh yeah, we still didn’t have seats.


We got back to the hotel by 9:30 in excellent spirits – thrilled that we ended the trip on a high note after a series of unfortunate events.  We got to the airport by 10pm, went right to the Air Canada counter, which had magically appeared, presumably at 9pm, and went to get our seats.  There seemed to be some confusion around our boarding passes, but eventually they were printed out.  We thought we got okay seats – somewhere in the middle of the plane and we had one aisle and one middle together.  And we were, much to our delight, upgraded to business class for the Toronto to Chicago leg of our flight.

And, then it went to hell again.  Going through security, I was forced to take off my watch at the last minute.  I threw it into my bin and walked through the metal detector.  I beeped, walked through again, beeped again, and was forced to undergo a pat down search, which they do in a curtained area.  Now I travel constantly.  My watch has never once set off a metal detector and I was not wearing one speck of metal on my body.  Yet somehow, I beeped twice and was forced out of line to be searched.  Security wouldn’t let me collect my belongings, so I yelled to Damon to get my stuff as I was escorted to a curtained room to be patted down.  It took less than a minute, but when I got out, I realized Damon hadn’t grabbed my watch.  I tried to stop the security line so I could go through the bins but the guy yelled at me and wouldn’t help me.  By the time I got anyone to listen, my watch was long gone.  They really couldn’t have cared less.  I immediately regressed back into frustrated mode, and may or may not have loudly professed my desire to never step foot in mother-bleeping Dubai again. 

Watchless, we got on the plane and realized we were in the mid-plane toilet row.  We had an aisle and a middle and I grudgingly agreed to take the middle where I spent the next 14 hours wrestling the man next to me for the limited arm rest surface area and physically pushing his man-spreading legs out of my area on multiple occasions.  It was brutal.  I think I still have bruises on my arm from the elbow wars.  I did jab him at one point when he had his arm covering the entire arm rest and yell “NO, YOU DO NOT GET THE ARM REST”  I think that culturally, he was not used to a woman yelling at him and eventually he backed off.  Hell hath no fury like a tired frustrated frequent flyer in a middle seat with no arm rest.  Oh, and the guy in front of me was the only one in full recline for 14 solid hours.

We arrived in Toronto and made it through customs quickly.  There was an earlier flight option on Air Canada, but, you know, it was freaking Air Canada and they wouldn't change our tickets - they said United had to do it.  United was about a 6-mile walk to the opposite end of the terminal and through some construction tunnels - we may have actually been in the US by the time we got to the United gates.  We didn't think we'd be able to find an agent, change the tickets, and get back in time so we stuck with our original flight.

Our flight finally started boarding – only 1.5 hours til we get home!  But the evil dark side (AKA Air Canada) was not through with us.  As we handed our business class boarding passes to the gate agent and tried to get on the plane, we were told that we had been canceled off the flight.  They kept saying we did it and we are like – when?  We’ve been on a plane for 14.5 hours.  How and when did we decide to cancel our only way home?  Ultimately, we got on the flight, but of course they had given away our business class seats to someone else.  Freaking Air Canada.  I have since written them a very strongly worded email expressing my lack of love for their airline. 

And finally, we were home.  Actually, I was home – Damon went right to work all overnight on a plane smelly, but that is his story.  I was greeted by Thorkey and and all was right with the world again.

When people ask me how this trip was, it is hard to answer.  The best I can say is that the good stuff was totally awesome.  I love that I married someone willing to take a crazy last minute goofy trip halfway across the world where we basically spent more time in the air than we did on the ground.  Visiting a different culture and a new city was great.  I’ve always wanted to see Dubai – the wealth and the crazy buildings and architecture.  But the bad was brutal.  In hindsight, I’m sure a lot of it was exacerbated by exhaustion and my inability to just go with the flow – a skill I’ll have to work on.  Would I recommend a visit?  Absolutely.  Just be flexible, hang onto your possessions, and do not get into a BMW no matter what the taxi guy tells you.

POSTSCRIPT:  I couldn't figure out where to put this last picture, but I have a weird obsession with toilets in other countries.  In Dubai, every toilet from luxury hotel to airport to mall to the equivalent of a public pit toilet all have what I have dubbed, the "booty hose".  I don't know why but I find it fascinating to see how other cultures do their business.  My favorite toilet picture, below, was taken at a public toilet in the Souk on our first day.  It was a hole in the ground and a hose.  Is the hose in lieu of a flusher?  Is the hose in lieu of toilet paper?  Is the hose a tool of defense in case someone walks in on you and you need to shoot them in the face?  I have no idea!  I always travel with toilet paper, so I used the hose to flush, although I kind of wish I had used it for defense... bucket list for another day.


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