Al Ain Zoo

Today we went to the Al Ain Zoo. Al Ain is a city within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Al Ain is located about 2 hours from Dubai. Located inland and near the Oman border, Al Ain also has the highest number of Emirati nationals in the country. You can see the Hajar (rock in Arabic) mountains from the zoo. This mountain range is in the eastern parts of the country and Oman. The drive to Al Ain is interesting. Although we drove the entire way on nothing smaller than a 6 lane highway you pass by desert, camel farms, date farms, various sand dunes and the mountains. The sand varies in color...mostly a light brown/sand but in some areas near Al Ain the sand is a bright red.

Evidently, crazy driving and road signage (or lack of) is not just a Dubai thing. Our trip there took us a little longer than planned. We finally stopped at a grocery store/mall and had lunch. Chris asked one of the mall's secruity guards for directions but his English wasn't great so we found a "western looking couple" to ask. They gave us great directions: "go on the road over there, go through two round-abouts turn left, go through four more round abouts or so and turn right, go straight and you will eventually see the zoo." As vague as these directions sound...it worked.

We had a great afternoon at the zoo! Savannah got to see a camel close up, the guide even offered to let us take Savannah's picture on one when it was sitting down but Savannah did not like being so close and instantly started crying-- although she liked to watch the camels from a few feet back. We saw lions, monkeys, rhinos, flamingos and giraffes. At one of the monkey exhibits they were jumping into a pond from a rope, every time one jumped in Savannah clapped for him. She also got to feed a giraffe carrot sticks (with the help of dad). Again, she liked looking at the giraffe up close...until he reached out his very long, black tongue to take the carrot. She fed him a few more times but each time made a funny face and a squeal/screech/ugh sound every time.

We successfully made it back to Dubai, although Savannah's time in the car had been maxed out for the day.