Advertisement
Published: July 26th 2006
Brendan & Hannah - Dubai Desert
The begining of a very cool night!After a much welcomed rest in our room, from our exhausting walk this morning, we received a call from reception to say that our tour guide for our ‘desert safari’ had arrived to pick us up. After a quick get-ready, we jumped in our white Toyota Land Cruiser, which we were soon to realise was pretty much the only kind of 4WD Dubai seems to know exists.
It still surprises me that we managed to actually get thought the city, pick up the other people in our car and get to the meeting place out in the dunes without having a serious accident. I think someone forgot to tell that driver that he wasn’t driving on the sand dunes at this stage, and in fact, those are actually other cars on the road. It made the drive from the airport peaceful and relaxing in comparison.
We meet a tribe of other white Toyota Land Cruisers, and stocked up on some much needed water, some snacks and an ice block at a price-over-inflated dairy. We headed out to the vast sea of sand dunes and it was evident early on that we had the ‘young crazy’ driver, much to Brendan’s
Dune Bashing
I managed to hang on long enough to take this pic! delight, and my apprehension.
We bounced, slid and skated along the dunes to a ‘lookout’ on top of one of the higher dunes. A raft of photos were taken of the sea of sand by all the tourists, self included. Brendan was convinced that all the photos would look exactly the same. He may be right.
Our driver took us up, over and across a vast array of dunes, that I’m sure are much, much larger than my house. We drove at full speed over tops of dunes and doing the next best thing to donuts with waves of sand peeling off the wheel, just like snow from professional skiers. I’m sure the car was going to roll a number of times. Though the rest of the occupants in the car were quickly enlightened when ever I thought this, I was wrong each time.
We arrived safely at what I can only describe as a camel farm.
Insert joke about “my humps, my humps, my humps… my lovely lady lumps…”
Then went to a little ‘village’ located in the hollows between some quite large sanddunes, which was to be our little home for the rest of
the evening. Everything was lit up by little lights, the place looked magical. There was a large square stage in the centre, with low tables and pillows set around the edge. The outside of the complex was lined with little stalls of the locals selling their goods. It didn’t take me long to notice the stall selling belly dancing skirts.
I convinced Brendan that he wanted to come for a camel ride with me. While we were waiting, Brendan felt a scratch on his foot and looked down to find a large Arabic beetle on his foot. ARH!!
The buffet BBQ dinner was massive. There was table after table of food, surprisingly some of which I could eat. Somehow, I seemed to end up with three times the amount of food on my plate than everyone else. I’ll have to learn to keep my plate a little further away from the people serving next time.
After dinner we all sat on the cushions around the edge of the stage, ready for the belly dancing. Personally, I found it quite fascinating, she danced with various vales, sticks and even a large metal sward. Before long, she dragged a
My Humps, My Humps...
... My lovely lady humps.. few unwilling victims up on to the dance floor: two males, who sense of rhythm was a bout as familiar to them as water is to a desert. But they were most interesting to watch.
Once their ordeal was over, the belly dancer came over to me and a South African lady beside me (who was slightly reluctant to come up at first) along with as many other females. Equipped with belly dancing skirts on loan, we all had a great time doing our best to follow the official belly dancer and show off to the males around the edge of the stage. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Next it was the boys turn. She first tried to grab the South African man sitting with us, but there was no way he wanted to go up, so I throw Brendan in the deep end and made him go up instead. Though quite hesitant at the start, by them time him and all the other males were dancing around in a circle, the ‘dorky grin’ on his face told me that his reluctance was short lived.
By the end of it all I had convinced myself that I ‘needed’ one of
Dubai Desert
Sand, sand and more sand! those belly dancing skirts. 50 Durham’s and a very cool white dangly skirt later, we were the last to jump in our 4WD and headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
After all, we had just arrived from New Zealand this morning!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.047s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0289s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
