May 4 Fujairah UAE

We passed through the Straits of Hormuz traveling from Dubai to Fujairah, our second trip through one of the most important and contested waterways of the world.  We slept through this trip also.  We couldn't have seen anything anyway -- it's pretty dark out there.  Except for a few smallish cities, there's nothing with electric lights.

For Fujairah we took an Oceania excursion, sort of a panoramic trip around the area.  Although Fujairah doesn't have any oil (that's Abu Dhabi within the UAE) it is strategically important since there's an oil pipeline from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah  That oil does NOT have to travel in a tanker through the Straits of Hormuz, and that can be a big deal during times of crisis.

 Our tour guide from Egypt

 First stop was the Fujairah Museum

 

Mostly it was filled with recovered antiquities.   We spent less than fifteen minutes to view the two rooms.

 

 Right next door is the reconstructed Fujairah Fort.

 Here's an example of Muslim cemetery.  No names on headstones, only identifying numbers.

 There are 6500 mosques in the UAE.  This is one of the more ornate, with 6 minarets (two not pictured).  While that might seem like a lot of mosques, my back of the envelope calculations indicate that that's one  mosque for every 1400 people.  In the USA, there's about one church (all denominations) for every 1000 people.  (All this is based on 5 minutes of research.)

 An oasis out in the desert.  Date palms are a vital part of the non-oil economy and a staple of the pre-Western diet.

 We stopped at the Friday Market.  Lots of rugs, housewares and even nursery plants out back.

 Cynthia bought a few small clay pots from this guy ($2 for 3).

 Tiny bananas and other fruit.

 Don't see many signs like this in Florida.

 All of Fujairah is volcanic rock.

 Some interesting roadway art in Fujairah,, located within the center of traffic circles.  There are lots of traffic circles (and very few traffic lights) in Fujairah.

 Here the 7 pots (one is hidden from your view) represent the 7 emirates of the UAE.

 Sharks

 One of the oldest and smallest mosques in the UAE, the Al Bidiyah Mosque.

 We visited on a Friday, the Muslim day of worship.  There were 10s of visitors to this mosque during our 20 minute stop at this location.

 Fujairah had a strong prohibition against taking pictures within the port area.  This is the reason -- the Fujairah Oil lndustry Zone.  Lots of oil tanks able to hold about 15 million gallons of oil, or about 10 days of pipeline content from Abu Dhabi.