Every year beginning in the middle of July Liwa city/Mezairaa located close to the Rub al Khali desert (“The Empty quarter”, a good 150 minute drive from Abu Dhabi) hosts the Liwa date festival. We visited on the second weekend towards the end and stayed at the Tilal Liwa hotel. The one-night stay was wonderful with the hotel sitting among low sand dunes and beautiful views over the desert and towards some small oasis settlements. We booked the hotel including breakfast, dinner and a massage package. The one night was almost too short, with us arriving after lunch and leaving shortly after to visit the date festival to enjoy dates and an adjacent, big cultural exhibition. We enjoyed the infinity pool with a desert view and the spa the next morning, just before leaving to the Tal Moreeb dune on our way home.
The views from the parking lot in front of the exhibition tents made us feel welcome right away. The poster shows a date farmer at harvest and had been guiding us along the highway to our destination where a beautiful wrought-iron fence and a gate reminiscent of an entrance to a local fort greeted the visitors.
The date and fruit exhibition was smaller than expected as the date grading and the prizes had been done the previous weekend. Still, there was ample opportunity to try and buy many varieties of dates. The multi-coloured bushel of dates shows the different ripeness grades of the fruit: from green and bitter tasting, to just ripe (yellow, crunchy with bite and a little sweet) to fully ripe (in red/brown) with a more intense and sweeter flavour. All of them were delicious with a hot cup of tea or Arabic coffee.
Other fruits on display and grown in the UAE were limes, mangoes and lemons. The other half of the exhibition hall was a huge market place with hand-made local products ranging from beautiful woven baskets, bags and mats from palm leaves to colourful dresses and home-made sweets. The quality and designs were some of the best ones I have found so far.
One stall sold hand-spun yarn from local sheep. Yay! Finally, I was able to purchase a local yarn. The naturally off-white yarn is a pretty big ball and a little coarse. I am sure it is great for weaving mats or pillows, but not something to wear close to the skin. I will measure the yarn’s yardage at one point and then decide what it will be knit or crochet into.
A last look at the desert and some impressions of the Liwa oasis and surroundings on our way home: camels, a small oasis and the Tal Moreeb, one of the highest dunes in the world with over 300 m at the highest point.
Greetings from the hot and dry summer desert, yours Maike
beecosydesign 
That was an interesting narrative on your visit to the Liwa Date Festival. Such a short visit but you packed in so much. What dates did you bring home?
I am curious about what you will choose to knit once you measure the length of native yarn you bought. What weight is it? What size needles will you use? I zeroed in on the vehicle & figure – unmistakeably Grant. Baskets have bright weaving. I still find it hard to imagine the totality of the oasis, like what lifestyles are within the oasis besides vehicles racing over the dunes. Must have been satisfying to see the highest dune in the Abu Dhabi area.
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Thank you, for reading my blog and finding it interesting. Our time in the Liwa Oasis area was short, but full of wonderful experiences. We bought some Zukari dates ( sweet and soft) and some Khanaizi dates which have a darker colour and similar sweetness. The yarn ball weighs in at 330 gm and it is about fingering weight. A needle size 2.5 -3 mm will work with it. My imagination and intuition will tell what to knit or crochet with it eventually. An oasis is nowadays a palm tree lined area with houses and roads. One can see where irrigation stops as that’s where the sand will take over. The desert we drove through is less empty nowadays with roads and highways busy with trucks and cars. Very rarely is there a spot where one could see only sand for kilometers without any man-made structure. A change of imagination for sure… Thank you! Maike
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