Every year beginning in the middle of July Liwa city/Mezairaa located close to the Rub al Khali desert (“The Empty quarter”, a good 150 minute drive from Abu Dhabi) hosts the Liwa date festival. We visited on the second weekend towards the end and stayed at the Tilal Liwa hotel. The one-night stay was wonderful with the hotel sitting among low sand dunes and beautiful views over the desert and towards some small oasis settlements. We booked the hotel including breakfast, dinner and a massage package. The one night was almost too short, with us arriving after lunch and leaving shortly after to visit the date festival to enjoy dates and an adjacent, big cultural exhibition. We enjoyed the infinity pool with a desert view and the spa the next morning, just before leaving to the Tal Moreeb dune on our way home.
The views from the parking lot in front of the exhibition tents made us feel welcome right away. The poster shows a date farmer at harvest and had been guiding us along the highway to our destination where a beautiful wrought-iron fence and a gate reminiscent of an entrance to a local fort greeted the visitors.
The date and fruit exhibition was smaller than expected as the date grading and the prizes had been done the previous weekend. Still, there was ample opportunity to try and buy many varieties of dates. The multi-coloured bushel of dates shows the different ripeness grades of the fruit: from green and bitter tasting, to just ripe (yellow, crunchy with bite and a little sweet) to fully ripe (in red/brown) with a more intense and sweeter flavour. All of them were delicious with a hot cup of tea or Arabic coffee.
Other fruits on display and grown in the UAE were limes, mangoes and lemons. The other half of the exhibition hall was a huge market place with hand-made local products ranging from beautiful woven baskets, bags and mats from palm leaves to colourful dresses and home-made sweets. The quality and designs were some of the best ones I have found so far.
One stall sold hand-spun yarn from local sheep. Yay! Finally, I was able to purchase a local yarn. The naturally off-white yarn is a pretty big ball and a little coarse. I am sure it is great for weaving mats or pillows, but not something to wear close to the skin. I will measure the yarn’s yardage at one point and then decide what it will be knit or crochet into.
A last look at the desert and some impressions of the Liwa oasis and surroundings on our way home: camels, a small oasis and the Tal Moreeb, one of the highest dunes in the world with over 300 m at the highest point.
Greetings from the hot and dry summer desert, yours Maike
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