#4 - Wahiba Sands

I don't describe landscapes. It's not my thing. In fact, when I read novels I always skim right over descriptions of landscapes because they bore me. But at this moment, I'm wishing I were the type to paint a landscape with words, because in the Middle East I saw some landscapes worth painting. And I could do it, if I really tried, but my prose still wouldn't even begin to portray the magnitude, the beauty, the starkness of the landscapes I saw. So for this post I'm going to let The Miraculous D-Fiddy do most of the talking.

I will say that what was so enchanting about Oman was the variety of landscapes it contains. We drove miles and miles of flat, uninspired wide open space on our way to Jebel Akhdar (Green Mountain), where we stood at an elevation of over 2000 meters - over a mile high in the sky. I have never seen terrain like that of Jebel Akhdar - rugged, barren (despite the name), and cut with canyons. Breathtaking. And then, perhaps 100 miles away, were the Wahiba Sands. Red sand dunes rising and falling, as far as one can see, like waves in the ocean. And then, just an hour's drive from the sands, is a canyon with a deep stream that slices through. While swimming in the wadi, I marveled how just that morning I'd been standing in the desert.

Before the trip, I'd read several sources that described the heat this time of year as "oppressive", but it was not as prohibitive as I'd expected. Perhaps this is simply because we lucked out. According to the hotel lifeguard, the week we were in Oman was uncharacteristically cool. That means it was 105 instead of 115. When stepping outside, it wasn't the heat that hit us like a wall - it was the humidity. Our shirts were damp even before the sweat could begin to soak through. The sky was usually overcast and the days were hazy. The only side effect I had from the sun was freckles. By the second day on the trip, my nose was covered in them. This has never happened before, no matter how much time I spend in the sun. They're finally starting to fade now, which is unfortunate because the freckles? They are freaking adorable.

Click for more photos of Oman.

The city of Dubai. Instead of endless sand dunes of varying heights, there are endless cranes at varying heights. Instead of rocky peaks looming large, there are towers rising high in the sky. The landscape of Dubai is construction and big dreams. There are billboards, everywhere, in empty plots of land that advertise what will soon be built there. It is a modern city, and so there are many buildings. But there are even more buildings-to-be, such that at times I felt that I was driving through a ghost town, except in opposite - rather than having just been abandoned, the place is about to explode with life.

Dubai was extremely hazy, partly due to the time of year and certainly partly due to the incessant nonstop building of buildings. An otherwise clean city, Dubai was covered in construction dust. It coated the cars and made new buildings (they are all new buildings) appear as if, for centuries, they'd absorbed the urban grit and grime.

In Dubai, the center of gravity seems to be constantly shifting. There is a visible struggle to claim certain parts of the city as Downtown. There is no definable downtown, yet, and so that honor is up for grabs. One real estate billboard proclaimed that "Life is moving downtown - don't be left behind." "Downtown", in this case, is wherever that building complex is being built. The fear of being left behind is palpable, and the spirit of one-upmanship is nowhere stronger than in Dubai.

And thus, when I think of the landscape of Dubai, it's the grandiose scale of things that immediately comes to mind. Every new project is bigger and taller than the last. The sky isn't the limit - the only limit is one's imagination.

Indoor ski slope at Mall of the Emirates

I didn't get to add Dubai to my collection of city metro rides because the metro is just now being built. And for me, that is the appeal of Dubai. I was there at a critical, and historical, moment in the lifespan of the city. I'm eager to see what Dubai becomes in the next few decades. Its irrational exuberance will either cause the city to fall on its face or the city's wildest dreams will come true. Either way, it will be a place unrecognizable.