Back to Ditch Plains Beach

I didn't get to see as much of this lovely beach as I might have liked. I'm curious whether it was the winter light that gave it that almost dreamlike feel, but maybe I'll be able to go back in a few months and see.

Days of Heaven

There's kind of an Andrew Wyeth feel to this landscape that I love. It makes me think of prairies and pioneers, not dunes at the Jersey Shore.

The moon also rises

A full moon rising over the dunes earlier this evening.

More sunrise

I do tend to be an early riser, so it's not unusual for me to be awake at sunrise. And if it was visible from my Manhattan bedroom, I might occasionally see some of them. So a sunrise always feels like an occasion, and I have seen some memorable ones: over the Zambezi River in Zambia, through a fogged up bus window in Denali National Park, behind a courtyard of gum trees in the Australian Outback.

But sunrises, like sunsets, are best viewed over an ocean, and it's fun to have one right outside my hotel. Especially since I can have a breakfast that someone else cooked for me immediately afterwards.

Sunrise at Hilton Head

Brave

Several people have told me how “brave” I am for having gone on this trip. I'm never sure how to respond to that, mostly because it's is not a word I ever use to describe myself. I'm naturally very timid, a serious introvert, and still battle shyness on a daily basis. And I don't feel as though I've done anything particularly brave.

Much of travel is the same routine wherever you go: airplanes and taxis and hotels, changing money, finding a place to eat, figuring out how to get to the sights you want to see. I don't go to dangerous places or do particularly daring things, and I'm able to go to Jordan by myself because I've already gone to many other places and I've learned how to do it. (Plus we have the internet. Traveling is much, much easier when you can plan it all online.) Things that used to scare me a lot aren't as intimidating anymore because I know how to handle them, and I always say that learning how to travel by myself is one of the smartest things I've ever done because the lessons apply to much more than just taking my next vacation.

That said, I do still get scared. I had two major anxiety attacks on this trip -- one in a restaurant in Jaipur where I was having lunch, and one here, on the drive to the desert barbecue in Abu Dhabi. After we left the city, and before we got to the dunes, we drove for fifteen minutes or so through an emptiness that made me uneasy at first, and then increasingly anxious. It was flat, sand and rock, with nothing anywhere except a few low fences and the occasional utility pole. The other tourists were chatting away in German, the driver was focused on the road, and I thought, “What is this place? What the hell am I doing here?”

Then we drove off the road and into the dunes and the beauty distracted me. And I was fine the rest of the evening and enjoyed myself very much. But I do remember that moment of panic, of feeling lost in a place that was completely alien and wanting to flee to someplace familiar. Back to the city. Back to my hotel. Home.

So I'm not all that brave. Fortunately, you don't have to be.

Random things from the desert barbecue

Adding hot coals to the fire pit (bad picture but it was dark), climbing the dunes, henna tattoos, falconry.

More views

For of all sad words of tongue or pen

The saddest are these: I have to go back to work tomorrow

(My apologies to John Greenleaf Whittier.) It is nice to be home, sleeping in my own bed, drinking coffee the way I like it out of my own coffee mug. And yes, ignoring the suitcase on the living room floor and the piles of dirty laundry until I've regained a little of the physical and mental energy to deal with them.

Here's a very small start on catching up on the backlog: a view over the sand dunes outside Abu Dhabi. (I added a border because the overcast sky blended into the white background of the blog page, and it looked dumb. I'm tired but still a nitpicker.)

Convoy

The desert barbecue was about an hour's drive outside the city and it was fun and only a little silly. There were henna tattoos and belly dancing and a falcon you could hold, but the best part was the 4x4 ride in the sand dunes before dinner. My fellow passengers were three young women from Switzerland and a couple from Austria, so there were a lot of shrieks of “Nein!” as we went barreling up in the slippery sand and came bouncing back down.

There were fifteen or so cars, which meant that I could take a few pictures of the other cars. Unfortunately it also meant that we could see what was coming. Oh no, that guy ahead of us just slid down the dune sideways! We're not really going to... Nein! Nein!

Dune

Sea grasses on the dunes in the late afternoon.