Days 7 & 8 - Abu Dhabi

Day 7 - Abu Dhabi...
Up early to re-write the Blog then taxi to The Club for more tennis. Seemed to both be on better form today; 6-2, 6-2. I was aching afterwards!
Lunch by the pool (burger M, Salmon wrap D) then lazing by the pool and a dip in a much warmer pool than only a few days ago. The warm weather has certainly helped!!

Shuttle bus back to Hamdan Street then to the Co-Op to get ingredients for dinner. Home to meet Sam then a taxi to Marina Mall for manicure (M) and pedicure (S) whilst Dave went to Carrefour supermarket to get the remaining ingredients for dinner.

A spot of shopping for Sam and I before we headed back to enjoy a delicious 3 course meal lovingly prepared by the boys! Mozarella and tomatoes for starter, home made ravioli and baked aubergine for main and eton mess for dessert, all washed down with a few glasses of champagne!
Off to Le Meridien Hotel for 'Ladies Night' where champagne was free all night for ladies. Too much for me led to an interesting walk home for Dave! Put me to bed around 1 am....

M xx

Day 8 - Recovery!..
Oh! My! God! I was met with a nasty hangover when I awoke. A day mostly revolving around sleeping and being poorly. Never again!
Had to rouse myself for 2:30pm as we had an appointment with a 4x4 and some sand. Off to the Hilton Hotel for pick-up then an hour journey out of Abu Dhabi. I slept most of the way and awoke finally feeling human again! A bottle of diet coke and some chocolate and we were set to meet with the other 4 vehicles to head off for our desert safari.

First stop was to meet some camels whilst the drivers let some air out of the tyres to help when driving across the sand.

The safari was great. Up and down the dunes it was sometimes quite scary. We were sat right at the back of the 4x4 so we got most of the bumps and jolts. I was feeling a little nauseous as we stopped off to see sunset - no sun so we didn't see much!!

The 4x4 was a Toyota Land Cruiser and you'll be pleased to know Em that it performed very well!

We did later learn that one of the vehicles had been on its roof last week but our driver had never been involved in an incident!! No-one was hurt we were pleased to hear.

Once we stopped for the evening at our camp, we were able to ride a camel (I did this but Dave was beaten by a group of Korean ladies who obviously aren't as well versed in the skills of queuing as us Brits!) We also had a go at dune boarding - basically snow boarding but on sand. We were both pretty rubbish! I had a henna tattoo and then we sat down to a delicious dinner. We tried on the traditional Arabic clothing and were treated to a display of belly dancing!

A really great evening!

Mxx