4/17–Abu Dhabi and turn over day

The morning dawns just as hot, hazy and sandy as in Dubai.

Today we are moving over to our suite for the next leg of the cruise. We’re all packed and ready to go – hoping we could move ourselves, but no such luck.  The people in the room for the last cruise haven’t budged by the time we’re ready to go outside to meet up with our tour.  We’re on another Cruise Critic tour today but fortunately not with Arizona.  We have a whole new set of folks we meet outside on the pier with whom we’ll go explore the city. After a bit of confusion ashore, we finally get our groups all together and in our vans. 

We are with Ann, the tour organizer, who has put together a tour in every port and you would not believe the detail and the organization she and her husband Ross have developed. They are amazing and we are so impressed with what they have done and the effort they’ve invested.

As is typical with every port we’ve visited so far, our itinerary isn’t exactly as stated – but we’re going with the flow. The big thing here is to see the Grand Mosque – everything else is gravy in our opinion.  We start out at the Heritage village, which is much smaller and compact than the Goa village.  We are free to wander up and down the little cobblestone walkway, looking at displays for handcrafters – potters, silversmiths, weavers, etc.  It’s a pretty little place – with great views across the river to the new city.

Inside one of the handicraft displays, women were actually working on looms and weaving material. They wore these awful mask like things on their faces – looked like a metal triangle piece that covered their nose and then under their mouths – it reminded me of the Hannibal Lechter mask. These, it turns out, were the first versions of the burka for women.  They were originally designed by the Bedouins to help protect from the dust and sand, but they ended up migrating to more wider culture later on in history.  Strange – but the whole covering up women thing is strange anyway, so, what do we know?

Leaving the Heritage village, we take a quick little city tour, stopping outside one of the grand hotels for pictures…

….and walking down the sidewalk a bit to take pictures of the modern city buildings.

The architecture here is truly amazing. Buildings in all shapes and sizes, standing up straight, leaning over, angles that defy gravity.  They’re pretty interesting – and on a much smaller scale and more compact than Dubai.

After a few minutes in the heat, we all pile back in the van to head to the Grand Mosque – the centerpiece of our visit.