Dubai Dunes

Awesome tour. Problem is my SD card on my camera failed so I've got no photos of the beginning of the trip. The ones in here are ones I've grabbed off the net. I discovered the problem when we stopped part way and one of the women suggested that she take a photo of me on the dunes and when she'd taken it, there was nothing on the card. I found another one in my bag, luckily, so have photos of the end of the trip, belly dancer, the dinner, but only one fuzzy one of the dune bashing – which was exciting and scary all at the same time.

The driver picked up me and three Japanese boys from our hotel. I gather from their English that they were only there for a few days, then spent Sunday flying back to Japan and back to work on Monday. Oh, the joys of being young!!

We then drove all over the place to pick up another couple from what appeared to be quite a fancy dancy hotel. She was Muslim, wearing her black robes and scarf. He was dressed normally (jeans and tshirt). I did notice later that she had jeans under her robe and at some stage during the trip, she took it off in the back of the car and just went in head dress and jeans. Before she went back into the hotel, she had re-dressed herself in her robe.

We met up with another 2 WDs at a petrol station outside of town. Toilet. The last to be seen for a while so figured I would go. Big mistake. Disgusting. Water (?) all over the floor. Toilet seat wet. Smelly. I'm not usually fussy about toilets, but would not let my bottom touch that seat and then washed my hands well afterwards.

Seemed to hang around to ages at the petrol station. The guide in my car's English was not so good, so asking him questions, you were likely to get an answer that didn't fit the question. Seemed a lovely young man though. We left the petrol station and drove a while further, and then stopped, with more white 4WDs, and the driver got out of the car. All the drivers seemed to be doing something with the tyres. So nosey Madeleine had to poke her head out the window and they drivers were all lowering the pressure in the tyres. On the way home, we had to stop and re-adjust the pressure in the tyres again.

Went into a conservation area (I took a picture of the name of the place so I would remember and that's one of the photos that is gone. So might google it another time. The sand is incredibly fine and soft. A darker brown than the beaches in Perth. When we were at the garage, I took some photos of the sand and the rubbish that had blown (or been thrown) up against a wall. It's really quite beautiful.

Once inside the park, the cars were parked and I started to realise just how many people were involved. I reckon there would have been at least 30 4WDs, all white, some with Arabian Adventures on the side, many without. If you allow 6 people per car, 30 cars x 6 people that's a minimum of 180 people. And I'm just guessing about the 30 cars. Could have been lots more. I tried to ask our driver, and he reckoned there were hundreds of cars, which I must admit I reckon was a bit of an exaggeration LOL.

Our first stop was for a falcon show. The falcon, when he's not flying, has his eyes covered. Feels really awful for the little bird, but the owner reckons it's a bit like the blinders that horses wear. Helps to keep them calm. They are beautiful birds and later in the evening I was allowed to stroke one and look at it with it's eyes open.

They swing a lure around and the falcon goes for that. Eventually he is allowed to catch the lure and again, I got photos of him eating what he had caught, and the picture is gone. I wonder if Mark can do anything to fix the card. Humph. I keep realising more and mo memories I've lost with that stupid card.

He was awesome. Apparently they are trainable but if they choose to leave, there is nothing their owner can do. This little fellow had a GPS tracking system on his back, apparently a bit like carrying a back pack so if he decided to go bush, the owner could track him and find him again. I wonder if they return home if left to their own devices or whether they just go wild.

After we left the falcon. The fun started,/dunes and hoon drivers who were paid to be hoons. It was fascinating at times you could see the cars ahead and the ones behind. Our driver loved scaring us. They all seemed to know what they were doing and I suspect the guy who got himself bogged will be in for some teasing. Although very quickly there was someone to help. There was a sense of overall organisation and that someone was in charge. Never did find out who,but when I forgot my photo, the guy who found me (don't know who found the photo) was kind enough to go back for it.

I don't know how to describe the sand dunes. Awesome. Sometimes you could feel the wheels slip and slide a bit and hold your breath while the driver kept/got control again. Sometimes you came over the crest of a hill and couldn't see where the next bit of the road was.. A number of times, there were gasps from the others in the car.

The drivers seemed to know the distance to keep between the car in front, and there were no accidents, just the one car that got himself bogged. Which would have been exciting for the people in that car.

We duned for a while, then stopped at the top of one, or the bottom and got out of the cars and walked up to the top. The young muslim women offered to take a photo of me and that was when we discovered that none of my photos had been aceepted by the card. I've got no idea why. Humph!!

Then we did some more duning. I reckon our driver would have been quite happy as a hoon. His driving was wild on the streets and when he was on the dunes, he had this grin on his face.

I tried to ask him if he enjoyed the driving and got an answer that was no where near answering the question. I also tried to ask him if we went out by a straighter route without the dunes as it was getting dark and I had this vision of us trying to drive the dunes in the dark. I figured it would be a much easier drive home – and it was.

 

From here, we went onto a meal, belly dancing, and other evening entertainment.

Madeleine

Tuesday, 18 December 2012