Turning 30 with style

I don’t remember the exact day, but about five years ago I was reading an article about Dubai and all the crazy constructions, hotels and malls that were developing there and I thought to myself  “I have to go there!”. According to what I was reading all the major projects were due to be finished  by 2010, but we know that architecture plans are never on time, so I decided to give it a couple of extra years and decided that Dubai would be the scene of my 30th birthday. It seemed sooooo far away back then…
Of course, 2012 came, and having spent two weeks in an amazing safari in Southern Africa plus an upcoming trip to Asia in August and being jobless after quitting my job in Ghana did not add up for a potential Dubai escape, so I scratched it off my mind. When I was little I used to hate that my birthday landed in the middle of summer because that meant no real party on your day as everybody would be away, sometimes myself included.. Then I grew up and the marvels of traveling hit me. Having a birthday in the middle of the summer became the best thing, I could be anywhere to start a new year in my life… and there I was about to turn 30 and had no plans at all for the big day… so I can’t start to describe my face when Chris said “I have a special offer on my credit card, 0% interest on balance transfers until June 2013 or buy now and and pay nothing until next summer)… where do you want to go for your birthday?”
Two weeks later we were arriving at an airport with golden carpets and palm trees, immigration agents dressed in traditional dishdash (long white robe) and keffiyeh (red and white headscarf)… or a black burka if they were female, all adding to the desert feel right from the beginning.. We were in Dubai!!!  Let me just say, briefly, this was the first time in my life that I get on a plane where the economy section is the smallest one of all.

Even though, Dubai is one of the world’s top destinations, during the summer is not a popular spot, for reasons we would later come to understand. The off peak season, got us a super deal to stay on the Armani hotel, right at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Little did we know that this experience would redefine forever our concept of hotel, service and subtle luxury. We were received by our lifestyle manager who pronounced the magic words “you have been updated to a suite”… oh yes, happy birthday to me…

Let me explain this lifestyle manager thing. The Armani hotel has a totally personalized service policy. The staff (along with the staff in the hotels around the Dubai fountains) wore a tag that read “NOW”, meaning No Other Way. Therefore, they assign you to a staff member who is in charge of making sure you have everything you need and ensuring that your stay is just above the line of perfection. There is no reception desk at the lobby of the hotel, on arrival, you are greeted by someone  who magically knows your name as if he had been expecting you (we still don’t know how they did it). This individual, who introduces himself as your lifestyle manager  and then accompanies to your room. Once there, your lifestyle manager proceeds to do the chek- in through an ipad before explaining how the stuff in your room works… YES, you need an explanation… as everything is discretely hidden behind movable panels and pretty much every function of the room can be controlled through the tv remote including: the tv of course, the lights, the shades, the music, the disturb/do not disturb sign and even the door, all with a touch of a finger without even moving from your bed.  The rooms are exquisitely decorated. Attention to detail has a new meaning. You get little snacks next to your coffee machine after the room is  cleaned up and chocolates in the evening after they come to do the turn down. My first words after entering the suite were “ I want to move here, I want to live in this hotel forever”… Even the smell on the halls…. *BIG SIGH*

 

The pool is located on the 6th floor. Changing rooms are perfectly well kept in line with the style and elegance of the rest of the hotel. You get a locker with a towel, pool robe and flip flops, plus a laundry bag to put your wet swimming suit afterwards. The staff on the pool prepare the pool beds for you and are always attentive in case you want to order something. I don’t know how they do it, but they sure train the staff to a perfect balance, being attentive but not at all intruding. And then there was the spa… oh the spa, with that wonderful massage I got for my bday….


Now, I’m going to expose myself just to give you an example of how observant and caring the staff is. We got a taxi back to the hotel on Friday from the Jumeirah compound. Having just been introduced to Dirhams (The UAE currency) I got mixed up and gave the cab driver a 500 bill (100 euros aprox)  instead of a twenty one (4 euros aprox). I get off the cab while the driver was looking for change and the valet, who was already holding the taxi’s door open for me asks me “did you pay him with a 500 bill? I first said no, then he asked if I was sure, so I doubled check my money and realized that in fact I had. Turned out that the taxi driver was looking for change of 500, he never had the intention of cheating me, but I was impressed that the valet noticed it from outside the car… seriously, where else have you gotten service like that? We even have an inside joke now.. Whenever we don’t know how to do something, we ask ourselves “what would Armani do”… that is how much of fans we became of the Italian designer’s style.





We were only going to be in Dubai for three days and we wanted it to be restful, so we decided to get the sightseeing part done with. We went to the old town and the creek area, and as soon as we got off the cab the great package deal, almost deserted streets and lack of tourists suddenly made sense… you really, really do not want to walk around a city at 48 C… we tried… we really did, for about an hour, until we started to dehydrate… I have only sweat so much once before in my entire life and it involved an enclosed space and some incandescent volcanic rocks, but that’s another story… In spite of the melting heat, we still managed to take a short Abra ride (traditional boats that take you along the creek). The old part of Dubai is quite nice and pretty, but it’s not really that old. It is funny, because you see all the buildings renovated and in perfect shape, giving you a feeling of lack of authenticity… kind of Marrakesh meets Epcot. Anyway… old town, done; gold souk, done; abra ride, done; sightseeing, done!

 

You can check trip advisor, what do you expect of a city whose top things to do includes a couple of malls? And you have to go to the malls, specially the Mall of Dubai, currently the biggest in the world… where else would you see golf carts running around as taxis? Or the priciest western brands next to the Prêt-a-Porter of Burka fashion?  Or an aquarium so big (yes, of course, the biggest in-mall aquarium in the world) where you can actually dive with sharks? (totally ridiculous by the way, please if you are looking for high thrills and adventure, don’t dive with the sharks at the mall aquarium in full view of shoppers on the other side of the glass don’t try to be an adventurer by diving with sharks when there is people outside the glass looking at you).

 

We went for dinner to the Thipthara restaurant at the Old Palace Hotel, which has a special Arabic desert  touch. The restaurant offers, not only fabulous Thai food, but also one of the best views of the Dubai Fountains. It’s  very hard for me to imagine a more special way to celebrate. The Dubai fountains are a reloaded version of the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas, and they run every half an hour from 18:00 to 23:00.

 

 

 

There is a tradition also listed as a top thing to do in Dubai: Friday brunch. It is a massive buffet consisting usually several rooms of food. Fortunately,  Ramadan was just starting, so most hotels did not have Friday brunch and the ones that did had a “smaller” version of it… We have a VERY different concept of a small… and I said fortunately because I don’t think we would have been able to move for hours had we attended the real “not-so-small” version. We went to the Jumeirah hotel for this occasion. Now, next to us was a German family with a young Neanderthal boy, clearly brought back from another era of human evolution. I had never seen anyone eat like that. His  plate was huge and pilled with steak and fries (that’s fine, a lot of people stuff their plates like that in buffets). The true spectacle was in the way he tackled the mounds of food that lay before him. He saw absolutely no need of utensils… why would us use a knife and fork when your hands would do just fine to grab the steak, bring it to your mouth and pull it back as you try to tear it with your canines???  Images of a hyena dining on a zebra carcass kept coming back as we looked for a discrete way to document this with our cameras. Sadly we didn’t get any good pictures of this… just a short video of him drinking…sorry choking down… a glass of water like an old huge Bavarian man would choke a mug of beer

 

                                     

 

 

 

After all that food ingesting,a stroll around the Jumeirah complex and its bazaar (yes there is a bazaar inside the complex)  seemed necessary. The Jumeirah hotels are an exccellent option if you prefer to stay at the beach. Later that night we thought it worth to go see the emblematic Burj Al Arab hotel (the sail). After an earlier failed attempt to go in we discovered that we needed a reservation to even be allowed into the grouds of the hotel so we went ahead and booked a table a the the  Skybar. This is a hotel that praises itself of being the first seven star hotel… I can only think of one word to describe it : TACKY… seven stars of tackiness… I don’t know if it’s the golden columns, the red velvet furniture or the rainbow colored indoor fountains, but … it’s just too  much… Armani would die… We got into the golden elevator, down to the golden arches that mark the entrance to the “underwater” restaurant (it is not really underwater, just has a huge aquarium that gives you the same sensation and Ironically it serves seafood) and back up to the golden tunnel of microchips that lead the way to the sky bar with some more golden columns… do you get the picture of the shiny golden stuff? We order an entrée platter (yes, we are trogoldites who were still hungry after the brunch… in our defense, it was the “small” brunch) and some Clear Mind cocktails. Interesting huh? Non-alcoholic beverages were labelled as clear mind. If you think about it is a clever way to positively promote a healthier  drinking options by indirectly lableling alcohol as clouding your mind… which  of course is true.

 

 

On Saturday we decided that being all the way down there was worth a little more of sightseeing, so we went to Abu Dhabi to see the Grand Mosque. It is absolutely stunning. Anyone going to Dubai, must go to the Abu Dhabi mosque, is only an hour away, and the place is just astonishingly beautiful. We shouldn’t forget that we are at a muslim country. Yes, they are more westernized and tolerant, but still pretty conservative, you see a lot of women walking around in traditional black burkas. So if you are visiting a mosque you have to dress accordingly. Men, it is easy: no shorts, no sleeveless shirts, that’s pretty much it… Women, even easier: black burka. I thought I was acceptably dressed with my long beige skirt, my white long-sleeved shirt and my black head-scarf… WRONG! You have to dress in dark colours. Luckily they are prepared for infidel attire and black burkhas are available on loan … yes, you will loose all your sex appeal, but you are unlikely to need it inside the mosque anyway. The mosque is air-conditioned, so not that much suffering on that area and again and, the place is so beautiful that it is all worth it.

 

                

                                                

                                 

 

Before heading back to Dubai we stopped at the Serena hotel, an old palace turned into a luxury hotel. The highlight for us was our lunch: camel burger + camelccino… a cappuccino made with camel milk… it does taste weird, but it was good. We didn’t want to eat much (although of course we did) because we had a booking at one of our hotel’s restaurant for dinner. As I said before it was Ramadan, a holly month  for Islam. For 30 days Muslems are not allowed to drink anything from sunrise to sunset. It is an interesting time to visit a Muslim country, but you have to be aware that while Ramadan is not enforced, tourist are expected to follow it as well. This implies avoid eating or drinking anything in public during fasting hours. Many restaurants are closed during the day, however, after sunset, when they break the fast with an Iftar, , another excessive buffet with traditional middle eastern food and other delicacies

You are in Dubai, so of course you want to get to the top of the Burj Khalifa, or as close to the top as you can. At the Dubai mall you can buy a pass to get up to the 124th floor (the building is over 150 stories, almost 900 meters tall). Now here is a tip, you can make a booking for the Atmosphere bar on the 123rd floor instead, and save the queues. There is a minimum consumption per person, but its similar to the amount you’ll pay just to go up the observation deck on the 124th floor and you’ll get to enjoy some mocktails as well as the fantastic view. This is a good option, specially if you don’t have much time (passes at the mall have an specific hour and can be sold out for the day). It is a good idea to try to go before sunset, the view is more contrasting, you have absolute desert on one side of the building and the city and sea on the other. You can also differentiate better  the famous artificial islands “The world” and “The palm”. However, I personally found the view from the bottom of the building up to be more impressive than the one from the top down.

  I also would like to recommend getting on the Dubai metro. It  gives you a different perspective of the city, riding an elevated train, approaching all those tall buildings is quite a futuristic experience, kind of like the Jetsons.

 

 

 It was really sad waking up on Sunday knowing that our trip was over, but everything has to come to an end to make space for other things to come… It is also fair to say that Armani has spoilt us beyond repair!  Previously perfectly reasonable 4 star hotels are now extremely disappointing specially when we are met with confusion and  disbelief when we stand behind those large reception desks asking to see our lifestyle manager … I want to go back!



Red Dunes of Sossusvlei

If you have, so far, been curious enough as to google Namibia, I’m sure pictures of big red dunes were the first to appear… if it didn’t occur to you before, but now you just can’t contain your curious self, go ahead, google Namibia,  I’ll make a pause and wait for you to come back……
Now that’s  Sossusvlei, and that is exactly where we were headed. The drive form Windhoek is about 5 hours. The roads in Namibia are pretty decent by African standards. In fact, our biggest trouble came from our GPS which insisted in marking turns where there was absolutely no road. Anyway, after ignoring the GPS a couple of times and just staying on the real road we made it to Sossusvlei Lodge. I have never been a camping person, until now. Although, I’m afraid most people wouldn’t’ consider this to be really camping…. Specially not those parked outside the lodge with tents settled on the roofs of their vans… Still, I think this luxury camping scheme is the way forward in my relationship with nature.

The place (luckily as most of the places we visited) was just idyllic. We could sit on the porch of our tent, looking to a vast field, watching springboks crossing, with majestic dunes as background. We took a quad bike tour through the bushes to admire the beauty of the place from within and came back for dinner, which was a never-ending buffet with a mix of exotic and common meals.





The next day, we woke up early (very early, the kind of early in which it takes my brain about half an hour to start processing things) to make our way to the dunes as soon as the park opened and avoid the burning heat of the midday sun.  The dunes in Sossusvlei have this iconic red colour because the sand they are formed of contains great amounts of iron. Every dune in Sossus (we are friends now u know) has a number or a name, dune #45 being the most famous one for no apparent reason. We went up Big Mamma, and boy it was big. You don’t really realize it until you start going up, and up, and up… and it is sand so it’s not an easy walk, but once you are at the top, everything gets a new meaning, we could have stayed there for hours, just contemplating the beauty of the place.

Coming down is way more fun. You don’t actually go down the same way you came up (which is following the side of the dune), no, you go down skipping through the middle of it. I wasn’t so sure about how fun it would be at first, it looked quite steep and I’m not exactly the most gracious and agile person in the world. But after watching Chris, I decided to try, it was almost like floating, and once you start you get all the way down in seconds. Chris actually recommends to try jumping forward.
Once down, our guide had prepared a beautiful breakfast in the open, which we really enjoyed, and so did a couple (more like seven) of bees which were feasting on our fruit. We then proceeded to the even more dramatic scenery of Deadvlei.

Deadveli is within the Namib-Naukluft park. For some reason in that specific area of the park the sand, combined with the river that used to pass some thousands of years ago, formed some kind of white mud that solidified and turned into clay. The trees that had grown there died, but the dried trunks remain. So what you get is white floor, with shiny red/orange walls and dead trunks spread all over. It’s a unique view and can be a little creepy, if you consider that some trunks can look like petrified tortured souls (or maybe I just have a really unlimited imagination).   Anyway, it is definitely like nothing you have ever seen before, or will see anywhere else in the world.

We went back to the lodge for lunch and a little rest before our afternoon excursion to the Sesriem Canyon. An enclosed canyon is a great contrast with the openness of the sand valleys, but it might be just as beautiful. I guess the fact that it is somehow hidden in the Earth gives it a special charm. It offers you a relaxing atmosphere and a refreshing swim…that is of course if, as opposed to me, you loved ice cold water.

                                  


We were back in the lodge just in time to see the sunset from the central tower and a special dinner. I had booked a bush dinner for two because I saw the pictures on the lodge’s website and thought it would be a nice experience. The pictures on the website, of course, were amazing, but I didn’t allow myself to have big expectations since pictures are usually better than reality (when they are trying to sell something). Not in this case, as we would discover later. The guide picked us up on a safari cart and drove around for a little, telling Chris (who had absolutely no idea what was going on) that we were hunting our own dinner… which, actually would have been really cool, now that I think about it… We stopped next to a huge rock and the guide told us to walk around it. The scene was just taken out of some Hollywood movie, I don’t think I can even describe it accurately.  Tenths of candles decorating around a private buffet and a table set for two in the middle of the Namibian bush. If you happen to be in Namibia for any kind of a special occasion you must absolutely consider this option. The lodge’s staff went beyond that extra mile you make sure everything is right at the top of perfection and you leave with the most unforgettable night printed in your memory forever. I can’t think of a better ending.