Welcome to the Desert, Call Me Sir

February 10, 2011 at 10:02 · Filed under Abu Dhabi, Places to go, Things to do, Travel and tagged: abu dhabi travel, cheetah, development, dhabi, gazelle, giraffe, resorts, salt hills, sheikh zayed, sir bani yas

Sir Bani Yas is not the name of a long lost Arabian Knight, nor of an Englishman hidden away in the caves of the Emirates’ Western Region. It is a sizable island 250 kilometers down the coast from Abu Dhabi, reachable only by boat, and just a short ferry ride off the one road to Saudi Arabia.

Check-in for the resort — it is (of course) a resort — is on the mainland, miles away from the 34 square miles of desert island that was once as barren as its neighborhood coastline. But in 1971, the late ruler and founder of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, built a palace on a hilltop, imported his favorite African animals à la carte, and established the island as a national reserve. And that — as they say in these parts — was that.

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