Eastern Promise

Beyond the shopping malls and high-rises that most experience, we discover the UAE’s wilder side…

- Phoebe Smith

The ground of the wadi was golden and crumbling, its fallen rocks lying at my feet like broken biscuits. My guide, Marelie, stopped and gestured to one green shrub: “This has to be my favourite part of the whole island,” she revealed with a smile.

I was stood with a group of five Brits, for whom seeing a bit of greenery on a stroll is usually nothing to write home about. The silence was noticeable but Marelie was not easily discouraged. “Don’t you see how utterly incredible it is?” she asked. “Here in the middle of a barren and desert-like landscape, where no water exists; here a single tree has found a way to live.”

The group nodded somewhat dutifully. “Amazing,” she repeated before leading us further up the trail. I had to admire her passion. The plant in question was, to the casual eye, nothing particularly special, but if the last few days in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had taught me anything, it was not to take things at face value when it comes to Abu Dhabi, and I had a feeling there was more to this.

Certainly, if you’d have said the name of the UAE emirate to me a week ago, I’d likely have dismissed it as a typical example of the Arabian peninsula, offering little more than shopping malls, decadent hotels and wide highways with big cars. So, when the opportunity arose to be introduced to its ‘wild side’, I was curious enough to investigate further.

The roots of the city