Fujairah

I was trying to mailblog from the ship yesterday, but for some reason
the ship's computer didn't like my email and ate it up, together with
the photo that I was trying to post. So here's the re-post from free
Internet access.

Yesterday we spent in Fujairah, the smallest of the Emirates. It feels
more like what Dubai and Abu Dhabi would feel like without the oil
wealth (or if it were differently distributed.) It's pretty run down
and the buildings are old. And yet, because it is the only one of the
Emirates ringed by mountains, its climate is less harsh (it was
actually raining yesterday) and the scenery is stunning. I need to
post this picture of a little mosque we visited, which was surrounded
by some of the most stupendous scenery I have yet seen in the region.

I fell in love with the desert when I visited Jordan two years ago,
and this visit has only reinforced that infatuation. Think of powdery
sand, orange and rose colored, rippling on all directions. Magnify
that tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold. I could never get tired
of it.