A PERFECTLY TIMED BREAK IN THE DESERT

In my last post I spoke of a lack of enthusiasm for blogging/overall ‘mweh’ mood’. What better to battle these sort of feelings than a well-deserved (or even undeserved) break?

Fortunately this was exactly what happened to lucky old me. My dear grandparents took me (and the rest of the clan) for a family holiday in Dubai and Oman. Why these dusty desert destinations? Well, I have relatives living in the former so a visit to their new home turf was in order. Furthermore, Oman and Dubai are two of those places where one can get some dearly needed sun exposure in February without spending 22 hours on a plan or being so jetlagged you spend the whole week sleeping at inappropriate times.

Oman pleasantly surprised me with its beautiful rocky coast that made the water of the gulf seem even bluer. We didn’t exactly have the most cultural of itineraries for our days there, spending a lot of time in front of that blue water on sun chairs reading, consuming G&T’s and eating spoonfuls of hummus, which was absolutely fine by me. This sun induced surge in my vitamin D levels definitely did me good and got rid of the majority of my mid-winter slump, as did the time away from any type of screen. (The fact that the hotel bed was about twice the size of our not-quite-double London bed was a nice novelty as well.)

We did leave our hotel (we’re not that bad at being tourists) to visit some of Oman’s natural beauty, Wadi Al Shab, which is a series of natural pools in an impressive canyon. We walked for about an hour in the mid-afternoon heat, so when we finally could go for a swim in the last one, we felt like we’d earned it. We had to climb over slippery rocks in between bits of the pool and at the end we had to swim through a narrow hole between the rocks to get into a sort of cave with a waterfall. It was all quite hilarious, but none of us had a GoPro or something similarly waterproof, so no photographic memories, alas!

On our first day in Dubai we had more water related fun in Atlantis Aquaventure, a waterpark on the manmade palm peninsula. (A waterpark on a fake island in the desert sums up how artificial Dubai feels pretty well by the way.) There was a lot of laughing and screaming and one of the rides was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life. Only me and the boys went on it so I felt like a pretty #toughchick afterwards, which (kind of, but not really) made up for the mortal fear experienced.

Because of the dust/sandstorm that was going on for the rest of our stay outdoors activities weren’t the most pleasant option, but the food in the hotel in Dubai was unreal, so for the rest of our time there we mostly ate and had food coma naps. I also had a little swim in our giant hotel bathtub (again: quite the upgrade from our London infrastructure).

This trip really couldn’t have come at a better time. The thought of sitting down at my laptop and writing something is now something exciting to look forward instead of another item to tick off on the to-do list. Sometimes you really just need a break.