Part two in the chronicles of my holiday in Dubai...
On Friday, Joanna had a surprise birthday party planned for her friend, Bethany. I was the decoy - she told Bethany the party was to introduce me to her friends. She was just using me. =) So we spent the day preparing for the party - making beef barbeque (haven't had that since I left TX), potato salad, and other fixings, and watching American tv, shows that I haven't seen here in Scotland. It seems so odd to me that Dubai seemed to have more of the comforts of home than Scotland does. Hmm... Anyway, the party was a success and Joanna's friends were a lot of fun, though Bethany was not surprised.
On Saturday Jo, Bethany, and I headed out to do a little shopping. A lot of things are really cheap in Dubai (not food and housing though), and it was SO hot, so we spent a lot of time in malls while I was there. Late that afternoon we were picked up at Jo's flat by the tour guide for our desert safari. We headed out of the city in his Toyota Land Rover, and met up with about 7 or 8 other groups (there were 6 of us in our vehicle - 3 girls from Ireland and the 3 of us) before hitting the sand. They let some of the air out of the tires in the SUV's, and off we went, up and down the sand dunes in the middle of the desert, sometimes sliding sideways down the dunes, bouncing all over (thankfully we had seatbelts), and just having a blast. We "dune bashed" for about an hour all together, and it never got old. We saw wild camels walking around in the desert, and stopped a couple of times for some pictures. One of the SUV's got stuck on a dune, with the sand up to the chassis, and the front and back wheels barely touching the sand, so another vehicle attached a rope to it and yanked it free. That was cool to watch! Oh, and it was 50 degrees out in the desert while we were dune bashing - that's 50 celcius, 122 fahrenheit! - so we were glad to be in a nice airconditioned vehicle! This dune bashing was definitely one of the highlights of my trip - it was so much fun, almost like a rollercoaster at times, but one with no set track to follow. Our guide sometimes veered away from the others, taking us up, down, and over some of the most amazing scenery I've seen. Definitely an experience I'd like to repeat, if I ever make it back to Dubai.
Here are some pictures from our stops in the desert. Man, was it hot out there! But it was worth it, I tell you that!
1 comment:
Wow...you're living on the wild side now, aren't you? I'm glad you were able to do something so fun. Looks like a fun time. And this post almost looks like a scrapbook page. 20 days and counting down...
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