Adventures with Julia

Dubai City Map

I am looking out at the Persian gulf from our hotel’s breakfast restaurant just to the left of the Burj Al Arab Hotel on this map.  It is lovely, but just too hot to want to be on the beach. Yesterday was also very hot. We managed a full day of touring around Dubai from inside our car and in buildings. No one is outdoors more than absolutely necessary. The temp got up to 113F.

Scene from the car on the main road through the city.

We drove all over the city, and visited several of Dubai’s landmarks. First was the man made Palm Island. Looks like a palm from the air, but driving through it there was no sense of palm at all, just lots of buildings, large and larger. It is where many of the ultra rich have houses.

We also stopped at the most expensive hotel in the world, the Burj Al Arab, where the rooms are $2500 and up. We shopped in the largest grocery store I have been in including Wall Mart.     Mark bought a new electric tooth brush as his died on arrival. We walked hours the worlds largest shopping mall, with about 1100 stores and hugs spaces to walk around in. The mall included an ice skating rink and a walk under, around, over and through aquarium complete with a fish zoo and a glass bottom boat ride. That was very interesting. In another, slightly smaller mall, we visited the only indoor ski area in the world and actually saw people skiing on the man made ski slopes, with snow covered trees.

To see the desert, we drove 20 minutes out of town. The city is so built up there is no sand for miles. Once out in the desert the sand began to form rolling hills. Our guide said the sand hills just get larger as you drive further. Enough.

View from top of Burj Khalifa

Back to the city, we went up to the 148th floor of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. There are a few more office floors above our landing. The world’s first, and maybe only, Armani hotel occupies the bottom floors, followed by many floors of apartments and then offices. There are 3 viewing levels, of which 148 is the highest. The ride in the elevator was most interesting. It lasts only 75 seconds and travels at 2 floors per second with no sound or sense of motion. A second elevator ride takes you from the 125th floor to the 148th. Once at the top, the glass walls totally contain you so there is no fear of falling or being blown around. We stayed up there a long time enjoying the view all around. We were told the Burj Khalifa was built in only 7 years and was fully rented in 48 hours from when it became available.

There was a water show at the base of the building, just like the one at the Bellagio in Los Vegas. We saw one of the shows from the top, where it was not very impressive. Later, we saw another water show from the ground and liked it better.

Water show in front of Burj Khalifa

Did not get back to the hotel until 7:30. After a shower and change, we took a buggy (translate golf cart) ride to a seafood restaurant on the hotel grounds. It was out on the water, but again too hot to eat outdoors. Nice food, but very expensive.

Now we are at the Dubai airport and I want to get this post sent.  Will send more text when I can.

Well, after a long hiatus, we have booked our next big adventure in Africa.  We leave home on July 27 and expect to return on September 5, 2016.  We will be stopping in Dubai for a couple of nights to acclimate and get a quick look at that modernistic city in the desert.  The we fly to Khartoum to spend 8 days in Sudan.   We have read some exciting information about the history and people and want to see for ourselves.  It will be very hot, so am glad it is not longer than 8 days.  From there we will fly to Uganda to spend a week with our Kellermann Foundation friends next to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the South Western corner of the country.  This will be our third visit there and we know we will be seeing an incredible hospital facility, nursing school, volunteer residences and other buildings in the area, none of which existed when we first visited Scott and Carol Kellermann in 2002.  Then, we helped them administer drugs to people suffering from malaria, by hanging IVs from a large tree while the sick lay around the tree on blankets with their families next to them.  I have somehow agreed to be on the KF board and this will be an official trip with several other board members visiting as well.  We will finish off our Uganda leg with a stay in a high mountain rain forest lodge.

From Uganda we will have a driver take us to Kigali, Rwanda.  Should be an interesting ride.  We will have only one night in Rwanda so we will see what we can in the allotted time.  My primary goal is to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial and learn about the Hutu and Tutsi mass killings that took place in April-July, 1994 and what is happening in the country since then.

From Kigali, we will fly south, across the equator to Zambia, where we will visit two game parks for several days each.  What is different about safaris in Zambia is that they are often walking safaris, which should be interesting and adventurous.   Finally, we will fly into Milawi for several days of adventures on and near Lake Malawi, the ninth largest lake in the world.   Interestingly, it also contains the greater diversity of fish in the world.  Maybe I will even try fishing……

….which reminds me about my mother who loved to fish and keeps asking me when will I go fishing for her.   For those of you who are interested, LaVonne, still with us at the age of 94, resides happily in an assisted living facility in Grass Valley.  She has been under Hospice Care for 10+ months since she suffered a mild stroke.  She is growing weaker in both mind and body, but is not ready to leave yet.   Mark and I had paid for a trip to Africa just before her stroke and decided to cancel, believing she would not last long.  Almost a year later, she is still walking and talking and smiling at anyone who comes near.  We have given up waiting.  So this time we are paid up again and determined to go.  Hopefully she will still be here when we get back.

So I am sending this to you as a warm up for the trip and a chance to see if I can still blog.  It has been a long time.  Next I will try to send some images and see how that goes.

So until then, Happy Adventuring,

Julia