Shopaholics Paradise and Desert Surprises!

The main leisure activity here seems to be shopping! There are a number of malls the size of Meadowhall - I don't know how many, but lots. Our local is Ibn Battuta, named after an Islamic explorer who visited Spain, and then journeyed from Persia right through to China. There areas themed around these places, and it is all very well done (though you may detect here my basic dislike of the whole concept!!).

I nipped in one day with Steve, so he could get something for work. Here is the outside of the Spanish area and me standing outside the Egyptian area. Inside the wall painting were truely amazing - reminding me very much of the tomb painting we saw in the Valley of the Kings twenty years ago. But in the end shops are shops, and you can go to Boots at Heeley Retail Park (less glamourous, but the same stuff!) maybe this is a gender thing, because I don't quite get it!!

What I did enjoy most was my drive across the desert to the mountains! I got up at five, so as to cook breakfast and lunch and be on the road for 6.30 - before the traffic jams start building up. The roads were fine and despite taking a few wrong turnings I did not manage to be really lost! I was in the mountain town of Hatta by 8.00 am, and though it was already very hot, I climbed to a small viewing point in a park (though how you can call it a park with so few plants beats me!). You will see that the mountians are totally barren - close too they have no vegetation at all. The hat is not just for effect, the sun was belting down at me and I took the picure of myself which is while I look a little odd!

I then drove over a mountain pass to another valley and came back round on a smaller road across the desert. I had seen some 'beware of camels' signs, and managed to stop and picture this one, but the real shock came later when I came across a really live camel standing in the middle of my side of the road! He had important cud chewing to do, and was not moving for anyone! This did mean I could drive up close to take the picture - without leaving the cool of the car.

It is a land of sharp contrasts. There is rocky desert, desert with yellow sand which us quite flat, then the red sand you see on the camel picture, undulates into dunes sometimes a hundred feet high. Then out of flat plain and the mountains suddenly sprout. But it would take too long to insert all the pictures, you will have to wait for the slide show!

You just have to get used to how hot it is. I was just about OK in the shade at 8.00 am, but by lunchtime it was so hot that I could only sit in the car with a the engine and airconditioning on while I ate. Still it has been an amazing experience. I hope to get across to the east coast which is the other side of the moutians and supposed to be nicer than the coast here, but I am running out of days!

I will stop now before the picture placement on this blogger drives me mad - it will not do what I tell it to!!