Arabian Days and Nights

The last night that we spent in the UAE we decided to take a desert safari. Dune bashing at 50km/h with a driver named Rashid, One Canadian, One German and Two Danes was priceless.......especially since we were in a Hummer H2 (driving through Dubai in the hummer was actually more comical as the car took up two lanes!).

The famous peach coloured Arabian desert sands are located west of the Hat

ta mountain range, a large range of mountains to the south east of the UAE and it shared with parts of Oman (I say parts because the country of Oman is in three parts (look at a map to see)).

At any rate, Rashid came to pick us up at 3 pm, and we headed towards the mountains. We drove for about 20minutes on the desert highway before we finally slowed towards the meeting spot for all the other desert tour running that day. You see, while there are only four people in a car, plus the driver, several other cars take other tourists and we all meet at a bedoin camp for dinner and a show.

After emptying some of the air from the tires, and snapping some photos we got our first taste of dune bashing.....it was like a rollercoaster ride only with limited seat belts. While driving I found the accident log, the last entry said something like ‘accident, wheel balancing’. There were no other entries after that. As I was in the car already on the dunes, I thought it best to suppress the anxiousness that came over me and enjoy the ride.......so that is what I did.....of course, I would find the stupid accident log.....lol...

After driving up and over several sand dunes, bashing into the sand, watching Rashid the driver man the wheel we stopped on the top of a larger dune and brought out a snow board. That’s right we went sand boarding!!!! This was actually the only thing that I wanted to do, and why we ended up in the VIP Hummer Tour and not on the land cruiser tour. Rashid let the first two Danes go, and as they were going, I was carefully watching what the heck they were doing. The board was an old snowboard complete with the sockets for your feet, but we were all instructed to put the our bare feet beside the sockets. The first guy went, and wiped out near the bottom. Ditto for the second. Then I was up....I was slightly nervous.....got on the board, and looked at Rashid for confirmation that I had the position right...he looked at me then mentioned what I understood as ‘go, lean forward, look like a beach boy surfing’. From the pictures, you can see that I exactly what I did. I was surfing the UAE and it was fantastic.... for the 50 meters that I managed to stay on the board for..... When we booked the tour, max warned me that although sand boarding is fun, the hard part actually comes when you have to get back to the top of the sand dune. ..... in 40 degree direct sunlight, up an incline of 60 degrees, without friction is fun....carrying a sand/snow board is fun....er...the most intense workout on the planet. Really, this stage of the boarding is what decides how many runs one wishes to do....I ended up doing three....before another van showed up.

My last one was monumental though. Really. By this point I had the technique down to my version of a desert science. I got on the board, shifted my weight from the front tothe back, and a gliding i went.....then I hit a bump right at the bottom of the dune.....and flew into the sand. Head first. My mouth was apparently open too, which meant I not only got a face full of sand, but also a mouth full of sand. You can see on the picture of me at the top of the ‘sand run’ all the sand that was stuck to me (and my teeth!). The wipe out also commemorated a glorious rippage of my pants..apparently taking a face plant also calls for serious strain on the bums of not so travel friendly plants......the rip was right down the middle.....and I didn’t actually realise that they were ripped until we reached the camp (20 minutes later), had walked around a bit then realised that slight breeze on my rear end was a little too breesy.....I got max to take a picture so I could inspect the extent of the rippage...and it literally went from the top of my pants (where the belt loops are), to the middle of my thigh.... my pink and purple underwear was not exactly discreet.... luckily i had a second long sleeved shirt with me....for the cold 27 degree Arabian desert nights (to be fair, this is at least a 10 degree drop from the day time heat). I quickly wrapped it around my waste and the ripe was half covered.....it was THAT big.....

When we finally arrived at the Bedouin camp, outfitted with flushing toilets for us tourists, we were greeted with traditional Arabic coffee, dates and sweets. The coffee is very ‘thin’ but they add cardamom it, so while it looks like brown water, the taste is out of this world. The dates came from one of the several date farms in the UAE. Dates are grown in the Oasis’s, in palm trees. These were just roasted, without any additional sugars....yum....finally the sweets are deep fried dumplings that look and taste like a fluffy timbit, but they had a dark sweet viscous honey drizzled on them. It looked and tasted like a mix of honey and molasses...and those fresh out of the fryer were divine!

After our welcome coffee and treats we went for a came ride. I grew very fond of camels on our ride to Oman,when I met that camel on the highway (driving at 140 km/h). Camels are pretty cool. They are the perfect desert animal because they can actually smell water up to 20 kms away, only need water once every two or three weeks in the summer, and two months in the winter AND are very comfortable to ride. BUT they make the funniest grunting sounds....

To use the words of my sister....I was accosted by a camel.... and was the last one to ride this particular camel because he was getting too loud. Haha.

The night ended with a wonderful “traditional” Bedouin dinner (which had a slight lenabese flare to it), and a show by a ‘traditional’ Bedouin dancer (who was actually Russian....we shared our hummer with her on the way back to the hotel)......

The next morning we got up, said goodbye to Dubai and headed to the airport.....

The next morning we got up, said goodbye to Dubai and headed to the airport.....