Fujairah, UAE-Mosque, Friday, ROAD 2of3

Next, we saw the Sheikh Zayed mosque (that can accommodate 28,000 worshippers). Then on our way through the Hajjar mountains range we pulled over to see the massive recently completed (2/23) Etihad rail, that connects all 7 emirates for cargo transportation. It was a 14 year project that utilized 215 companies resources, 11 contractors and over 20,000 specialists with 133 million hours of work. It required 593 bridges, and 9 tunnels and connects 4 major ports. It has the capacity of moving 60 million tons of goods annually with its current trains. The next phase will be about moving people around the emirates which is expected to change the entire face of where people can live and how tourists will visit the emirates.

Then we drove to the Friday Market (yes, it was Thursday, but it started out as a Friday Market but no it is open every day). This roadside market that went on and on had many fruits and vegetables and lots of popcorn and other food we didn’t need … not to mention rugs and mattresses. It was fun anyway to walk around and watch people buy stuff they didn’t need. We did see 129 different kind of dates and it was just about the height of the Ajwa date season when some go for as much as $500 a pound for the first crop.

Our next adventure was on a new 55 mile road that included 5 tunnels blasted through the mountains that changed a 3 hour drive to only 45 from Sharjah to Khor Fakkan. One of the tunnels was the longest in the Middle East at 1.6 miles. The most amazing part was that it only took 8 months to build by 32 construction companies and 150,000 workers.Les mer