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The waiter’s friend
There was a rainstorm in Abu Dhabi today, about 48 spots in all on the bus windscreen, but plenty enough to get the wipers and the local media going. We arrived back in the Emirates on Tuesday night to reports of unsettled weather for the next five days, with rain, gales and storms predicted. Yesterday, winds of nearly 75 kilometres per hour almost caused the closure of Abu Dhabi airport, and also uprooted trees and caused widespread damage inland. While winds of that strength would barely raise an eyebrow at home, particularly at Wellington airport, New Zealand is not a country built in the desert. Sand storms reduced visibility to 50 metres at Dubai and here we were sent packing early from the beach when, suddenly whipped up by the wind, the flying sand gave us an involuntary skin peel. At the same time the temperature plummeted from the mid-thirties to the lowish twenties.
Indoors, the blown sand permeates everything, leaving a layer of coarse dust throughout. Glasses placed on the benchtop grate like fingernails down a blackboard, tiled floors are gritty moments after vacuuming and clothes hung out to dry assume a dull muddy colour. It is hell indeed; even Jade’s Porsche looks like no one loves her.
Upon our return to Abu Dhabi we realised that earlier comments about the traffic here may have been overstated. Compared to Cairo, it is positively orderly where even driving on the correct side of the road seems not a complete priority. Here, the older-style white and gold cabs are Toyota Corollas and in relatively good order, with metres that work. Not so there. While some cabs have meters, they could barely be described as even decorative; old and discoloured and none of them work. Fares are negotiated prior to the commencement of a journey, that is, if you are wise.
Earlier we had reported that the Cairo taxi fleet comprised 80,000 Ladas but, in fact, many are of Romanian and other Eastern European origin. Each and every one seems in a terrible state of disrepair, and few would be deemed roadworthy, let alone warrantable, by New Zealand standards. One cabbie scornfully told us how unreliable the Eastern European cars are, he from the comfort of his own decrepit vehicle of French origin.
Other public transport seemed equally haphazard, ranging from buses, which Westerners are recommended not to use, to commer-style vans which appear to pick up and drop off passengers at will. Some we observed drove with doors open, bits dangling off them, and with passengers hanging on, getting on and off where ever and when ever they felt like it. Bedlam.
Culture shock it may have been, but Kaelene has now tracked down and brought a trusty waiter’s friend so we can enjoy our duty-free Egyptian Omar Khayyam and Obelisk reds while we recover. No more wrestling stubborn corks for us.