Europe and the Final Countdown

Not the iconic 80's song, but today we fly home. We cant wait to be home to our own bed and to see friends and family, but we also don't want this adventure to end. I guess we will have to start planning for the rain forests of South America now!

From spice to space

Today we were supposed to go to a theme park that has the fastest roller coaster in the world, Ferrari World. Sadly though, most of the rides were closed for maintenance, so instead we had a lovely little tour of Dubai city, stopping off at some of the key sights. Most of Dubai has only been built in the last 30-40 years, so its all very new and the skyline is constantly changing with new high-rises and hotels. We also visited the old spice souks, and although being Ramadan, many of them were closed, there were enough open for us to get a feel of the place and the aromas from all the spices mixing together was amazing.

In the evening we went to the largest mall in the world, which includes the largest aquarium in the world, an ice rink, a roller-coaster and pretty much every brand,shop and restaurant you can imagine. All of this is in the base of the tallest building in the world, and we were about to go to the top - or pretty close to the top anyway. The lift shot us up to the 140 floor in 60 seconds, but you could barely even notice you were moving, the only clue being that your ears popped on the way up. Once at the top there were some great views of the city at night.

The last few floors above us:

On our way out of the mall we noticed an odd looking ATM machine, this was a gold dispenser, a cashpoint for gold bars, that only accepted cash as payment. Only in Dubai...

Sun, sand and... more sand.

Today we went 'dune bashing', which is to say we went tearing around the desert in a 4x4. We observed lots of camels wondering loose in the desert - apparently they don't worry about them coming back to their farms, as they always return because of the heat and they know that is where they can get water. There are three different breeds, brown, black and white and the latter are best for racing - but none had go faster stripes. Brown camels are the most common and cost approximately £1000 - £1,500 to buy, but a good racing camel can cost upwards of £300,000.

The drive was lots of fun, but it wasn't long before both Nikala and I were feeling a touch queasy from all the bumps and sliding around. We then stopped off to meet a camel up close.