Good morning French Toast! Well, we are back down in the restaurant again for our last meal at the Sheraton – today is going to be a busy day so we had better fill up! We need to pack and move hotels and then at 2pm we are being picked up to go on our Heritage Tour Safari!
I have found the buffet at the Sheraton Dubai Creek just awesome – while I cannot eat half of the things on it, I have been taken care of really well. The diversity of the restaurant guests is testament to why people like to stay here – the buffet covers a lot of cultures and the food that they like to eat first thing in the morning. There is East Indian, Middle Eastern. European and North American items on the buffet. The only thing that is missing is Japanese/Chinese that I can see. Today I took some pictures so you can see the different offerings.
I also took some pictures of our lovely room too! It was a two room suite – there was a living room area that as we were on the corner of the building had an interesting view – there was a bar so we did not fall into the window that was jutting out from the building. The bedroom had the Juliette balcony and the LARGE washroom. Similar to Europe, we had a bidet and toilet and also a shower and bathtub along with the standard sink.
When we were ready to leave, we were going to take a taxi to the Four Points Hotel in downtown Dubai that I had booked next, however the doorman told me that we could take the hotel car instead and it would cost the same amount of money. Sounded like a plan to me! Arriving in a private vehicle to our next hotel sounded luxurious! Also, it was less stressful than waiting for a taxi and perhaps getting a driver that did not understand English. A very nice gentleman drove us to the Four Points downtown which was basically located on a major road running through downtown Dubai.
As we arrived at the Four Points about 2 hours before they were expecting us at 3pm, so we had to wait for our room. They were very hospitable and sat us in the cafe on the main floor and bought me a drink (Andrew was not thirsty) and basically kept us entertained. We were getting a bit concerned as by this time I had received an e-mail that we were now being picked up at 2:25 and it was getting close to 2pm. So I meandered back to the front desk and found that our room had just become ready. So upstairs we went and to our surprised again, we had been upgraded to a suite! Not quite as nice as the Sheraton however it was absolutely fine for our needs! We quickly unpacked and got dressed for the desert trip and were downstairs right on time to be picked up in a very nice new Land Rover. We were the first to be picked up in our group and we picked up the other 2 couples, one from Spain and the other from Sydney, Australia. The Spanish couple were staying at a hotel similar to ours in terms of quality, however the Australia couple were at a very exclusive hotel so they must have had some money! We then drove out of Dubai, to the north, for about 45 minutes until we got to the land that Heritage Tours owns and operates their tours from. The 6 of us were together the whole afternoon/evening and there were about 15 groups of 6 that were being entertained that night. When signing up for the tour we had the choice of riding a camel in the desert for an hour or taking a 1950’s Land Rover tour of the desert. As I have previously ridden a camel and did not think it would be a good fit for me these days with my back issues, we chose the Land Rover experience. So the 6 of us got into the Land Rover and off we went into the protected Dunes area, where we had to pass by a security guard at a gate first to be let in!
What an amazing experience! Driving along the roads of the dunes and seeing wildlife at the same time! Yes, there are “roads” as this is a protected area and “freewheeling” is not allowed. Neither is dune surfing in this area as some companies advertise. So we saw the two different types of gazelles – one that is native to this area and one that is not. The snow gazelles are in a protected area and under isolation – females a babies in one area and males in another area. They do have a “mixed” area too. The reason for this is that this population did get out of control in the desert and now is under protection so that does not happen again. We drover next to a very exclusive Marriott Resort named Maha – I did look at staying here but it was just a bit too many points! Then we saw the trees that in the desert one should aim for and then continued along the tracks – which then got a bit bumpy and reminded me of a Disneyland ride…
We were then taken to the falconry area where there was also supposed to be an awesome sunset and we were given Vimto (my favourite drink that Maha’s family serves me) where I had a few glasses (it is juice nothing more) and sat on cushions for the show and sunset! The man doing the falconry was excellent and told us the history of falcons and how they are caught when then arrived each year in the desert and trained by their captor. Then they use them while hunting for the next 6 months and at the end of the season they let them go so they can return to their off season home. And then repeat next year! The falcon then prepared to fly by the handler taking off its head gear, ensuring its GPS was working on its back for tracking purposes (as this is a trained bird, he did not want it flying somewhere he could not find it), and then off it went! It was beautiful watching it fly and then taking low passes back towards its handler looking for food. After several passes the falconer started swinging around in the air the “fake” food package for the falcon to catch, simulating a take down of prey. On queue the falcon caught the food package and brought it to the ground and held onto it – quite firmly! In fact the trainer was at one point dragging the falcon along while he stood on his food pack! So then he was fed – which happens once a day at the end of the show, and then we all got to take pictures with the falcon. Unfortunately the sunset was a bust that night – too many clouds in the way!
Then we were transported to the “camp” for dinner. They have 6 camps on their huge property. Four of them are for the Heritage Tours and two of them are for the higher end tours. As it is just entering into the tourist season only two Heritage camps and one high end one were in use tonight. The other Heritage camp was a private group. What a beautiful place! It is similar to a Bedouin camp, with areas to eat, sleep and cook. They had brought a chair for me to sit on and my walker up from where I had left it prior to getting onto the jeep at the start of the safari (no room in the jeep for it). Everyone else sat on pillows on top of tree stumps and of course, Andrew fell off of his – quite a normal occurrence for him to do something like that! They fed us a wonderful dinner of soup, salad, chicken (and other meat like camel which Andrew tried) and then fruit for desert. It was fascinating that when they brought out the salad course, which was served family or table style, they brought one of the salads in a bowl for me as there were gluten sticks in the main salad. There was also a beet salad and humus and they brought GF bread for me to have. Immediately the lady from Australia said “you serve yourself first and take enough as once we serve ourselves these dishes are contaminated”! I was SHOCKED that a member of the public that I did not know knew about cross contamination! So the rest of the table waited and I took my portions and handed the two dishes back to her and then they all dug in! That is a first for me in 40+ years of dining out with others!
There was a knife dance done and then some drum dancing performed by the men wearing Emirati type clothing, which the customers got to take part in. I just watched 🙂 As the ground in this camp was pretty solid, I was able to use my walker and I went and checked out the camels that were behind the camp where you could take a ride on them (for a fee) and used the washroom which interesting enough was accessible!
Then the shisha pipes came out and the place smelled of liquorish (I do not like that smell) and other sickly sweet flavours that they offer. Time to go! So we all got back into our jeep and the 4 in the back kindly held onto my walker for me and we were driven back to the entrance were we got back into the comfortable today’s version of the Land Rover and driven back to our hotels. It was an awesome adventure for sure!
Below are my pictures and then below that are the ones that the professional photographer took on the Heritage Tour along with the free video we received for signing up well in advance! Enjoy!
Here are the Heritage Tours pictures and video. First information on the tour that we took: Platinum Heritage Desert Safari
Here is the video of our experience: Video of our Heritage Tour Experience (there is sound on this)
