Desert Monkeys

On Wednesday, we did some pooling in the morning (the tan competition was on) and then headed to a store called the "Antique Museum" for some souvenir shopping. We discovered the Antique Museum in November '07 and it is basically a giant warehouse in the middle of no where divided into different rooms with goods and handicrafts from around the world (with a section or room for each region/country). It's kind of trippy/freaky the first time you go because you are basically in this sketchy warehouse in the middle of no where. It's fantastic though if you're looking for kitschy or unique gifts because they literally have EVERYTHING and at wholesale prices because they are the distributor for all the gift shops around town. Brett, Scott, and Jess did some shopping and I just enjoyed wandering around because you always see new things every time you go (and then end up buying something even if you have no intention when you go in). We explored that for about an hour and then headed home to get ready for our Desert Safari (the obligatory albeit fun tourist activity).

Our driver picked us up at around 4pm and then you drive out to the desert to meet up with the caravan of other Land Cruisers. This time was a little unique though because he stopped at a kind of desert recreation park on the way to meeting up. The park had go-carts and 4-wheelers you could rent out to go dune bashing on your own, and also had animals. MONKEYS.

Yeah, the park literally just had monkeys wandering around unleashed. I thought it was all cute when we first walked in so I started approaching this monkey to take his picture. He promptly ran up to me and clung onto my leg. I screamed and he fled (as above). Only in Dubai!

After my monkey friend fled, he then climbed into the donkey pen and decided to go for a ride.

And then when he'd had enough climbed out.

This little monkey was the less fortunate one who was tied up.

But don't worry, his loose little friend came over and picked the bugs off for him.

We had about 15-20 minutes to hang out at the park and I was pretty transfixed by the monkeys the whole time so didn't really do much else before we headed back to the car for our safari.