And so we bowled back down the six-lane coastal highway, passing through the centuries-old port of Dubai where mudbrick wind-towers still funneled the slightest breeze off the Gulf into the homes of smugglers and merchants.

Homebound, we raced against the setting sun, alert as always for errant camels, towards Abu Dhabi, now capital of a fast developing nation but within living memory no more than a clump of palm thatch mud huts along the shore. Just outside Abu Dhabi airport, one fortunate Natural Historian found an intact ancient Greek amphora (twin-handled water vessel) half-buried in the dunes.