Continued — a bit back to how my travel finally commenced.
Since I suffer from wonderlust or wanderlust as in tomato or tomatoe, I needed to act quickly to complete the full itinerary. This also included travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since my plane reservation/purchase was only three weeks before take-off.
At first, I muddled through websites with the usual suspects: AirBnB, hotels in the area of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and guest houses. Although it was hot in August to travel to the Middle East, the prices were just as hot or hotter! Daunted, I had to think outside the box, and camping was not a part of the equation on this trip (I could have tried, maybe? Nah!).
So, I did what any over-50 self-respecting lady would do: I reached out to Facebook, and more true to the story, my FB connections! In a Facebook post in late July 2018, I mentioned my tentative plans and wondered if anyone here in the US knew anyone in Dubai or Abu Dhabi who could host an ex-pat American Woman over age 50! There were probably many eye rolls, snickers, and scrolls right past my ask, but that did not matter to me.
I only needed one person to answer the call…
TBC
bSoleille
Terri
Photo: it is not the person who answered my call, but a passenger on my second leg of the outgoing trip (a few hour layover in Dubai): Dubai to Addis Ababa. We had a lovely chat about why she needed to go back to her homeland of Ethiopia. I was on the edge of my seat as she talked and then revealed the reason for her travels: spices! This kind lady who has an interesting back story was really into cooking and needed the best Ethiopian spices money could buy to make her "famous" dishes back home.
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