Se eu descrevesse o dia com detalhe e rigor teria certamente uma tarefa para duas horas. Por isso, vou centrar-me apenas nos pormenores mais importantes.
A quinta fica a cerca de 30 kilometros de Riade. A entrada e' feita por uma alameda de palmeiras e, em ambos os lados se avista uma plantacao, tambem esta, de palmeiras. O caminho e' de terra batida ate' se chegar 'a zona habitacional.
A producao principal da quinta sao as tamaras, mas tb ha gado e caprinos.
'A chegada fomos recebidos pelo pai do Salih que nos encaminhou para uma tenda. Os sapatos ficaram 'a entrada e fomo-nos acomodando as almofadas. O meu colega serviu-nos tamaras e cafe' saudita (cafe' e canela). Assim ficamos muito tempo conversando, rindo, passando um bom bocado enquanto nos deliciavamos com as tamaras e com o cafe'.
Terminado o ritual de boas-vindas fizemos um breve passeio pela quinta, e regressamos a tenda. Fumamos chicha (com sabor a maca verde), e bebemos cafe'. Assim continuamos ate' 'a hora de jantar.
Para jantar fomos para dentro de uma construccao, que mais nao era que uma enorme sala despojada de tudo, a menos de tres tapetes enormes. Num dos tapetes estava o jantar. Sentamos-nos no chao 'a volta do tapete e deliciamo-nos com as iguarias que se apresentavam 'a nossa vista: salada, arroz arabe (muito apropriado), arroz vermelho, borrego, frango e outras coisas mais cujos nomes nao me recordo nem tao pouco como foram feitas! Para sobremesa tivemos fruta.
Terminado o jantar regressamos a tenda, onde um braseira, cafe e um delicioso cheesecake libanes aguardava por nos. Se a CheeseCake Factory descobrisse esta receita libanesa seguramente seria o grande sucesso dos proximos anos. Voltamos a fumar chicha. Para terminar tivemos castanhas, que em arabe se diz castanas (foneticamente). Mais uma palavra tao igual!
Thursday was one of those days that I'll never forget, and will be with me until old-age. A Saudi colleague organized an arab dinner in his farm, and invited a group of people from work; luckly I was included.
If I described the day in detail, I'd most likely have to write for a couple of hours. Therefore, I'll be brief and focus on the most important aspects.
The farm's location is about 30km away from Riyadh. The entry is done with through a boulevard of palm trees, and in both sides we see the strech of a vast plantation of palm trees. The farm's main production is dates, but they also have sheep and cattle.
On our arrival we were welcomed by Salih's father who took us to a tent. The shoes stayed outside e we just sat as we wanted leaning against pillows. My colleague served us with dates, and saudi coffee (coffee and cinammon). We stayed like this for a long while chatting, laughing, enjoying the dates and the coffee.
Once the welcome ritual was over we left the tent and went for a stroll to get to know the farm. Then, we returned to the tent and smoked "chicha" (apple flavour), and had coffee. We went on like this until dinner time.
For dinner we moved to another place which consisted of a huge empty room with 3 enormous carpets. At one of the carpets our dinner awaited. We sat on the floor, around the carpet, and delighted ourselves with great food: mutton, chicken, salad, arab rice (very appropriate) and so on. For desert we had fruit.
Then, we returned to the tent to have more coffee and a very delicious libanese desert, something like a cheesecake, but way better than anything I'd tried before. We smoke "chicha" again and to finish we had chestnusts, which for the sake of curiosity, is mentioned the same way in Portuguese.
Uma vista do deserto/A view of the desert 
posted by Olindo Iglesias @ sábado, fevereiro 05, 2005
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