I've stumbled upon driving heaven

So, on my crawling around the internets I've stumbled upon a beautiful piece of road for driving enthusiasts. This windy stretch of tarmac, set in a mountain close to the largest stretch of sand in the world, is simply too tempting. Located the Jebel Hafeet Mountain near Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates the road covers roughly 12 kilometers and offers 60 corners over 1200 meter elevation. UAE, that is practically in my backyard!!!
Getting to Al Ain is not the hardest thing in the world. In fact, it is about an hour's drive from Dubai, and 20 minutes more if you are in Abu Dhabi. It just so happens that Dubai is roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes from Jeddah by plane.
Of course, my research went on as I actually got quite excited about making the effort to try the road out. The shame about Dubai these days is that it has gotten insanely expensive. With a destination like the Jebel Hafeet mountain road you do want some nice accommodation but that won't come cheap. I hear however that there are far fewer tourists than before so maybe the Burj Al Arab has special offers going on.
However, a bed won't be the most expensive part of the journey. With a road like that, the car will have to be something good. I found the site of a car rental, Top Drive UAE, which offers some nice cars. Ticking off the measly models first I soon found myself looking at their Executive class which offers something like the BMW Z4. Of course the boyish nature in me wanted more so on I went to the Business class. The Porsches show up there offering close to the desired performance. But bump it up a class, to the Royal-eeee, and you finally have a Ferrari on offer. But just as the BMW Z4 was not the most desirable option, the price of the Ferrari is not really for one's wallet. 2,450 US dollars per day. Exactly ten times more than the Z4.
So, assuming sleeping will be done in the Burj for three nights (in a suite of course), the Ferrari F430 is picked for a day and a flight taken from Jeddah, the total cost would only amount to about 6,000 US dollars. Of course, with cheaper accommodation and the Z4 total price shouldn't have to exceed 600 US dollars. That is tempting. Tempting indeed.
For more photos and info on the Jebel Hafeet mountain road, visit Edmunds.
Another interesting piece of tarmac is the Stelvio Pass (famously declared the greatest driving road in the world by Top Gear), but obviously not as well located for me.

Labels: day2day, english, Jeddah

as written by Tobbi G. at 4:14 AM GMT