Our trip to Al Ain was our first venture inland to the mountains. It's was originally created around an oasis that seeped out from the base of the mountains. I wanted at least a feel of a remote oasis: date palms around a pool of water in the middle of the sand swept desert. A bit naive on my part. Al Ain has grown into a metropolis in which we got lost, having no local map to navigate by.

Oh, and by the way, let me tell you about the street names here in the U.A.E. All streets are named after important people here. Unfortunately, the more important one is, the longer one's name. It is hard to spit out to a cab driver," Please take me to Sheikh Zayed The First Street" between King Khalid Bin Abdel Aziz Saeed Street and Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street." There are no street addresses so one has to use landmarks and verbal directions. Mail is always sent to post office boxes. Because of this quandary, there has begun a numbering of roads but not all maps have all these numbers and some roads have nicknames which may or may not be known by all. One section of Hamdan Bin Mohamed Street is nicknamed "Electra Street" but I think only the British expats know this moniker. Most of the minor roads into the neighborhoods and back streets are not named at all. I guess no one of any importance wanted to adopt these poor nameless orphans. One person gave me directions to her house by saying, "Go past 26th on Zayed and when you get to 'The One and Only' store (yes, they have a store by that name), turn right at the dumpster and go down that (nameless) street and make another right (nameless again) and my villa is on the left." There are no houses here, only 'villas' - they're actually glorified houses with high privacy walls, as well as pricey leases, and small, if any, gardens.

So, where was I?. . . oh yes, Al Ain, which also had this same interesting arrangement of byways. We found the bustling city center, animal souks, and the walled-in oasis which had quiet walking paths through it. We were especially entertained by the goat market. I never realized the variety in that species and so cute. It was a shame some of the chosen few were going to end up on a spit for the Eid Celebration the next day or the following day depending on the siting of the new moon. Leaving the crowded, noisy marketplace we entered the solitude of the oasis. There was a maze of walled paths through it - so many that we were concerned about getting lost. Upon hearing a religious chant, turning the corner, we came upon a jovial old man reciting from the Koran sitting by an one-room ancient mosque. He greeted us with great joy and insisted upon showing us his date orchard with a onrush of Arabic and hand signals. He ushered Bob ahead and held my hand - with a little too much gusto. I came to an understanding why he had Bob walk ahead. We graciously escaped as soon as possible right after having to consume some soggy dates.
After our flight from the oasis, we headed up the mountainside of Jebel Hafeet, a winding turn-pin road rising 1,180 meters in a few ear popping kilometers. We had sprung for the pricey 5-star Mercure Grand Hotel that sits at the top with spectacular views down on Al Ain and into Oman. It was a gorgeous place in the middle of nowhere with a swimming pool complete with a swim-up bar and a mini SplashTown-like slide, tennis courts, putt-putt golf and an abundance of boiugonvia and other tropicals starkly contrasting barren mountainsides. It was here, that Bob and I first tried the hooka pipe - although, like Clinton, we didn't inhale.