We set out early with 3 of them coming to pick up 2 of us who were in the same neighborhood. My neighbour decided to go out partying the night before and had way too much to drink. So we had to spend almost an hour dragging her out of bed, packing her clothes, warming up gross-looking leftover food while listen to her trying hard to recall the events of the day before, which included being pulled up by the cops. A very interesting tale, but that's not what this blog is about!
So we drove about 1.5 hours in a Peugeot 207 nick-named Titine, passing endless straight roads, desert on both sides, the occasional camel-sighting and beautiful sand dunes. We reached our destination, the Hilton Resort & Spa without much trouble. The hotel looked amazing with beautiful architecture and landscaping, strategically located overlooking the beach.
Most of our time was spent in several temperature-controlled pools and the beach. It was hard to beat the blazing heat even with all the shady beach umbrellas and loads of sun protection creams. It's funny how you don't feel the heat that much when you are having fun in the water. Only later when you see the skin tanned several shades darker, do you realise how strong the sunlight was. There was even a bar at the centre of a shallow pool. A very interesting concept, I thought, for reasons I will not elaborate here.
Food at the hotel was great of course (and expensive). Unfortunately, our friend with the hangover couldn't join us for a nice dinner. She was catching up on much needed sleep. After a good meal, we headed back to the room and went to bed. Early next day, we headed to the Spa for a head and shoulder massage. It was my first time at a Spa and I realised those places were carefully designed to make people feel relaxed and happy. Everything from temperature to sights, sounds and most notedly, the smells took one to a very quiet and tranquil state of mind within minutes. Luckily for us, an international buffet breakfast spread lay waiting to make our day. We ate as much as our stomachs could hold plus a little more extra. People always end up overeating at buffets. Buffets are a clever concept where people are invited to eat as much as they can for a high price. It's like a win-win-lose scenario, where hotels profit from the customers (win) and customers are left satisfied with the variety of food(win) and are also left with too many calories (lose). After that, we spent a few more hours in the pools, enjoying the last of it before check out.
By 2pm, we were all packed and ready to leave, reluctantly of course. It felt like a long vacation even though it was only a one-night stay. There were so many wonderful photos taken, with ample lighting conditions and pretty blue skies and blue water in most of them. My heart was beating unevenly at the checkout counter, wondering by how much we had exceeded our basic bed+breakfast rate. But to our joy, it was well within our budgets and we headed out feeling like that was the best weekend getaway ever!
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