Jebel Hafeet

Jebel Hafeet – The Golden Mountain of Arabia

Thirty kilometres south of Al Ain, a small oasis on the Omani border, Jebel Hafeet mountain rises 1200 metres from the desert floor. A four-lane highway leads from the city to the foot of the mountain. From the desert floor to the summit, it’s about fifteen kilometers. There’s almost no traffic. As far as the eye can see, there are no trees, no bushes, no nothing. Sand-dunes, shifting golden mountains of dust meander off towards the dusty horizon. Large predatory birds circle lazily on the hot air currents above, their giant wing spans the only blemish on a perfectly blue sky. This is classic Arabia.
The road up Jebel Hafeet is steep, hewn from the rock face, curving and twisting past boulders and crags in the dusty stone. Anywhere else in the world, a surfaced single lane ascent would be an engineering marvel. In the Emirates, land of unlimited funds and free imagination and so it’s a three-lane motorway, lined with street lighting all the way to the top. It’s senseless, decadent and convenient. Fifteen km of high quality, well-maintained tarmac have been laid up a rock for only one reason – pleasure.
There is no rush of tourists, no high and low season and there are no postcard and trinket sellers at the top. Just a huge car park, big enough to land a small plane on. It’s deserted and it’s hot. Very hot. Opposite the summit, clinging to a razor sharp steep ridge, stands a magnificent palace. Like a mirage, like a wonderful tale from Thousand And One Nights, it’s out of this world.
A wide drive-way leads up to a set of automatic gates, a sign reads ‘Private Poperty’. It’s very private. There’s not a soul in sight, the palace’s windows reflect like mirrors. The palace is one of many owned by the Sheik of Abu Dhabi and current leader of the Emirates. How he gets water up here, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest source, what it costs to maintain a place like this, is beyond comprehension. On a smaller summit near-by a cluster of solitary transmitter towers defies the sun and clear blue sky. For lack of better reference points, Blofeld’s HQs in any of the Bond movies pale by comparison. It’s a place for a man fit to rule the world. The air of unreality is pervasive.
The car park at the top is windswept and covered in tire marks. Someone’s been joyriding their Ferrari above the clouds. But there are no clouds, just the palace. An Indian guy in an orange overall moves slowly around the area, picking crumbs of dirt off the ground.
Below, way below, the desert is a gray expanse, dotted with a few farms, the oasis of Al Ain in the hazy distance. Directly at the foot of the mountain I catch a glimpse of green. There’s life down there.

The road at the foot of Jebel Hafeet isn’t paved. It’s made from individual cobble stones, the kind that would grace a posh drive in front of a villa in the West. Miles of it. Built by Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. In the unforgiving sun. By hand. For slave wages. The low hills around lining this extraordinary bit of useless infrastructure are covered in green grass. There are no trees, no bushes, just grass. We follow a couple of Landcruisers until the view opens to a narrow valley leading towards sheer cliffs that reach up to the summit of Jebel Hafeet. The brand new Mazda saloon we are driving is by far the shittiest car on the road. More water. A stream rolls past in a concrete river bed. Pavillions dot the green hills, filled with afternoon day trippers. No foreigners. A group of women, dressed in black from head to toe, prepare food in one of these constructions. A few metres beyond, the men smoke hookas. There’s no litter, not anywhere. We cruise on, from pavilion to pavilion, watching the richest day-trippers in the world unwind…poolside. The next pavilion has a Jacuzzi. I’m not hallucinating. I am standing in the driest, most hostile place on the planet, miles away from the nearest water source and three Arabs sit with their feet dangling in the water, talking, drinking tea, soaking up the late afternoon sun. It’s free of course. I find another, unoccupied Jacuzzi. My friend is about to whip his clothes off and relax in the water, when we realize that the clear water is hot enough to boil an egg.
An army of large sprinklers dot the hills like sentinels, to keep the vegetation going. Beyond the green hills, there is nothing - sand, rock, more sand and the mountain. The sprinklers dispense hot water too and the stream by the road is boiling hot and tastes a bit salty. The grass is not really grass but a rubbery green desert moss that forms a thin carpet on the forbidding dry soil. Switch the sprinklers off for a couple of days and it will all be gone.

‘Jebel Hafeet’ was first published in Farang Magazine in 2003.