I just realized that I forgot to mention that we were on this trip with a group sort of. A wonderful lady named Donna set up the Madonna packages and we bought our concert tickets and hotel packages through her travel agency. There were others in the group but me and my friend Jennifer were the only ones who bought along their men. For me it was John and Bruce and for her, her hubby Britten. We did the nights out, the safari tour and Madonna concert with the Martins. We have found them to be an amazingly fun couple with a child a little older than Bruce, but what we love best about them is their easy manner, and the fact that like us we are all spontaneous and just go with the flow. We are happy to have met them and are glad they are in Bangalore the whole time we're here:).
Back to day 2. A deep sleep massage of one and half hours, and hanging out by the pool....that was John's first half of Day 2 in "Abubobbi". I was determined that though this trip was supposed to be "about me" that John and Bruce would have a great time too. So day 2, John headed for his massage and Bruce and I cabbed it to Marina Mall, which was really big and had quite a few shops to choose from. The ride out to the mall was a good fifteen or twenty minutes away and the scenery was spectacular. The sky was so blue and the buildings looked like paintings with a beautiful back drop of endless blue skies. Along the route to the mall was also Cornishe beach with it's white sands and true blue waters. The beach looked so clean and so inviting, until the driver told me that the temperatures get as high as 100 degrees or more! Pass. But my how beautiful it looked and I know that in the fall months the temperature will drop and the beach will be something to see and explore at another time.
So on to Marina mall where Bruce and I stayed till 1:30pm. We had fun, bought quite a few things that I knew I wouldn't find in Bangalore and scoped out the eateries and was so jazzed to find that they had a Fuddruckers. Couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and tell John! But first today was about shopping for me and so shopping I did and Bruce was the best little sidekick. The hours went by quickly and all too soon it was time for us to head back to the hotel where we found John drinking mojitos at the pool. He looked so yummy in his sunglasses and big smile lounging, enjoying the scenery and cold drink. We closed out his tab and headed to the hotel room to get ready for our Desert safari tour! We knew it involved sand, camel rides, belly dancing and food. And within fifteen minutes our ride had arrived and we were on our way!
Jennifer set up this portion of the trip. We hadn't realized that the safari tour was in Dubai, so our trip was almost two hours away to get to the destination. Not sure on the timing because the ride went by quickly and was an interesting time the whole way there. We even got to stop at a CONVENIENCE STORE! Britten was even kind enough to get out and buy us some snacks which included a drumstick icecream cone for me. Heaven! Seriously, I was in heaven. I mean a convenience store? We just don't have those in Bangalore. We all started giggling and were just giddy thinking that here all things were possible!
After the convenience store, we headed to the first stop on the tour. It was an area of sand dunes which you could rent sand dune vehicles and ride them for a bit. At this point I had not acclimated to the heat outside and decided I would sit back and watch. As did Jennifer. We hung out in the breezy watching area and enjoyed the scenes of our boys...., well, being boys! Here are a couple of pics.
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php#
Yes that's me in the background yapping away, as we all know I can never just shut it, even when I'm scared to death! Will work on that....
Thanks for recording this Britten, Bruce LOVES watching it over and over.....
In between the dune bashing, our driver would stop in some more sandy areas where all were encouraged to get out and take pics. After the dune bashing, we finally arrived to our camp site. This is where the camel rides were, along with Henna painting, shisha smoking, and two dance shows Unfortunately we didn't do the camel rides as we had planned to come back to it but forgot, but the rest of the evening was lovely and we had a full wonderful desert safari tour. Remind me to tell you about our driver and his stories that he shared on the evening ride home. Also how he drove us out of the desert with the lights out.....no worries it was a full moon and we were the first ones out so we made it ok, but what an adventure it truly was. Thank you to Jennifer who set this up for us, it was one of the highlights of our trip! Stay tuned for Day 3, Madonna!