As the photos to the right clearly show, Dubai is NOT Africa!
The enforced experience of spending a few days in Dubai is definitely a deviation from Andrew’s and my planned African experience. Still, it should make an interesting dinner time conversation starter to say – quite accurately – that we had to change our travel plans because of the threat of war in the region where we were due to travel.
Despite having access to the internet here in Dubai, I am still not quite sure why Eritrea and Djibouti are at each other’s throats. I found a few websites on the subject, but I am still not much wiser. Neither was anyone in Eritrea able to explain the breakdown in relationships to me. It seems to me that a poor, isolated nation like Eritrea needs all the friends (and investors!) that it can get, and yet it seems to be going out of its way to make enemies, including its largest neighbour (Ethiopia) and its ‘gateway’ to the outside world (Djibouti).
We had three main tasks to achieve today. The first was to catch up on much needed sleep. We managed that by remembering to close the curtains before going to bed (yes, we have curtains in Dubai) and setting the alarm for a late sleep-in of 8:00 am. It was a fantastic sleep in a wonderful bed, so task number 1 was achieved.
Task number 2 was to obtain tickets for our proposed flight to Djibouti so that we could resume what was left of our African itinerary. Achieving this task was not quite as straightforward as we might have hoped. We had managed to make an unconfirmed booking while in Eritrea for a Daallo Airlines flight later in the week. However, the ticket had to be paid for after arriving in Dubai. We asked at the hotel where the airline’s office was located, and we were told that ticketing for all airlines should be done at a government travel office that was only ten minutes walk from the hotel, at the Dnata office to be precise. Andrew and I walked to the Dnata office, only to be told that it could not handle reservations with “airlines like Daallo Airlines”, and we had to deal directly with the Daallo Airlines office. The person attending to us had no idea where the airline’s office might be, but she phoned them, got an answer on the fourth attempt, and found out that the office was located a few kilometres away, across the road from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
We went outside, and fortunately managed to flag down a taxi after just a few minutes waiting beside the road. We arrived at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, to find that it was a huge establishment, over half a kilometre long, and it was very unclear in which direction ‘across the road’ the airline office might be. We thought the best idea would be to ask at the hotel’s reception desk because they would surely know the locations of nearby airline offices. No-one there had ever heard of Daallo Airlines, and they suggested that we ask at a Singapore Airlines office in the hotel’s shopping arcade. No-one there had ever heard of Daallo Airlines either, but they were extremely helpful, looked up the number and phoned the office, and obtained walking directions to get there. They also offered the helpful advice that the airline’s office was actually “Al Yousef’s Travel Shop” and that was the sign we should look for.
A short ten minute walk brought us to Al Yousef’s Travel Shop, a tiny shop-front that did actually advertise itself also as the Daallo Airlines head office. Once we had found the office, the rest was comparatively easy. A helpful assistant retrieved the booking made by the travel agent in Asmara, we paid for the tickets and received our tickets. Thus task number 2 was successfully completed.
Our third task today was to survive Dubai’s searing heat. It is summer in Dubai, and although today’s temperature of 44 degrees was cooler than yesterday’s 47, it was still extremely uncomfortable to be outside. Fortunately, everywhere in Dubai seems to be air conditioned, including the taxis. It was a stark contrast with Eritrea where we never encountered an air conditioner, anywhere, in spite of having temperatures only a little cooler than Dubai. After managing to secure our tickets to Djibouti, Andrew and I therefore spent most of the afternoon indoors, catching up with internet and e-mails.
Task number 3 was thus successfully accomplished.
