A SHORT, SWEET AND BLISSFUL TIME IN QASR AL SARAB

Build up to Qasr Al Sarab and Liwa Desert.

Although I don’t want to hammer on about the year 2020 (as everybody does), I do need to touch on it quickly. A lot of people had a really tough year and our hearts go out to each and every one of them. T and myself were very fortunate, we and our families were healthy, T had the opportunity to continue work as normal, with the slight change that I get to see him more often.

Having said that, we did come to realize a few things with our “first-world problems” as we call them. The biggest and most valuable thing being, Don’t take anything for granted, no matter how small.

This revelation led to us thinking about where we stay. We love the UAE, but do know that it’s only temporary. This then led to the thought that we should appreciate every moment here, which led to our UAE bucket list. Although we have done quite a few things already, we both agreed on one outstanding activity. Visiting the Liwa Desert in the empty quarter. And the most remote destination we could find (since we’re not campers) to stay was Qasr Al Sarab Resort.

This might have been a bit of a financial stretch for us, but since our travels were canceled for the year, and I had a bit of money set away for T’s birthday, I decided to treat him/us to a weekend away on his birthday.

Our Road Trip to Qasr Al Sarab.

About four days before our trip, we decided to split the drive into two. Although it wasn’t as far, we had to do a covid border crossing to Abu Dhabi and didn’t want to get stuck there for an unnecessary amount of time. We booked ourselves into the Intercontinental Abu Dhabi and did that part of the drive the night before. After a good night’s sleep, and breakfast we took to the road. At first, excitement flashed in my hubby’s eyes with a speed limit of 160km/h. Then all of a sudden it went down to 100km/h, and the road felt never-ending. The highlights of the drive were, crossing the Tropic of Cancer, seeing some camels, and the mere nothingness except for the amount of sand that no mind can comprehend.

The Resort.

I don’t really know where to start or how to describe the resort to do it justice…

Abu Dhabi still had very strict regulations regarding covid, which meant that some services such as valet parking were unavailable. This did not take anything away from the experience.

The resort felt like the set to Aladdin (with golf carts instead of flying carpets?) and we felt like Aladdin & Jasmine for two days. It had all these courtyards, nooks, water streams, fountains, allies, arches, lanterns and so much more detail everywhere we looked.

Everything in the decor added to the Arabian, desert oasis feel and ambiance. The lightning was mostly different shapes of lanterns, the floors were polished marble and even the artwork on the walls resembled the riffles and texture of the desert.

The Pool

During the last bit of lockdown and the summer months, they apparently did quite a bit of renovation, mostly at the pool area. The pool, swim-up bar, and queen size sun loungers were our daily escape from the scorching desert heat.

The Room

As mentioned earlier, this was a bit of a financial stretch for us, thus we had one of the more “basic” rooms. The reason for the quotation marks is that it’s far from basic in our mind. This had to have been some of the comfiest beds we’ve slept in, relaxing showers we’ve showered in, and definitely the biggest bathtub we’ve bathed in. The bathtub is so big, that after T saw all the amenities in the bathroom, he looked at me in confusion and said: “They give you everything including a shower-cap for the shower, but no goggles for the bathtub?”

The patio had an amazing view and seating area. The view was that of one huge copper-colored sand dune, with a few palm trees forming part of the resort.

My sister and her family stay in Mauritus. My sister and niece Peyton, has been to visit me two times before. Once at the age of one, and again about a year ago (aged three). None of these times we really spent in the desert and did more of Dubai’s glamoured activities. Peyton gave me a video call, and once I showed her our view, her response was: “Wow, tannie Carli, that looks like camel farm?”.

he Details.

Usually, I would mention details that impress me throughout my post. This time around there were so many, that I felt it deserved its own chapter.

The details weren’t limited to the look and feel of the resort as mentioned earlier.

Maybe we’re not used to a lot but the service they gave us was out of this world.

When I did the booking, I never mentioned that it was T’s birthday. The moment we checked in, they picked it up, and from there on most of the staff we came by wished him a happy birthday.
Later that evening, when we got to the room, they left him a piece of the yummiest chocolate cake.
Somehow they managed to always have a bucket of ice in our room.
Even at the pool, we would receive a bag full of ice for our water to stay cool.
The staff was always friendly, and super helpful.
Every afternoon we would head out to go take some photos. The staff would come to get us at the room in a golf-cart, then take us to our car or photo spot. The moment they hear that we are going out for some photos they would start recommending some photo spots. They even stopped and got us some cold water, since the afternoons would still be a good 38-40’C.
And the final touch, that took it over the edge for us, was the little bottle of sand momento they gave us. It’s small and simple, but such a nice way to remember our time there.

The Food.

Food is always a big part of our trips. This time around, our stay was short and action-packed, leaving food to be on the sideline.

Breakfast was a treat, and a special shout out to the crepes they serve. This was so good, that at the end of the day’s recap/diary meeting T and myself have, the crepe was mentioned at least three times by T.

The restaurant’s food was a bit pricy but worth it. Sadly, what wasn’t worth it for us, were the cocktails. We know that hotel drinks can be pricy (especially in the gulf), and were ok to pay that for one cocktail each. The problem we have is that it didn’t feel or taste worth the extra buck.

The photo bummer.

I’ve been wanting to dangle my foot in astrophotography for a while now. I did however have two main problems:

The UAE has a lot of light pollution.
I have a crop sensor camera, which isn’t great for astrophotography due to too much noise in your photos.

Since we would be in the empty quarter, light pollution will be a lot less. This still left me with problem number two. That’s easily fixable… I would rent myself a camera and lens for this occasion. And so I did.

With plenty of excitement and enthusiasm, I started studying as much as I could find about shooting the stars. I did as much homework on the topic as possible. Realizing that the moon wasn’t entirely in my favor, but I was optimistic to make it work.

I didn’t make it work though.

A very long and to most people probably boring story later, it turned out to be a bit or maybe even a lot of a disaster. The problem (as warned by my dad) was that I didn’t fully know the new equipment I hired, and the lack of experience in astrophotography showed up.

On the last day, I started to get a feel for the camera and managed to get a few pics I’m kinda happy with. Although I am sad that I didn’t manage to produce any nice photos of the stars I’m not totally bummed out.

I got to spend time with T under the stars in the desert.
I saw my first ever shooting star.
And learned more in those two evenings, than I did in the weeks before reading up about the subject.

Last words.

Our final thoughts would be that it was probably our best UAE experience (even with wearing a mask) we have had in our almost four years here. The only thing we would do differently next time is to go at least three nights.

T thanx again for being my best friend and travel companion as always.

If all goes according to plan, next stop… ZANZIBAR! ?