We have had 2 days in the city so far, so it was time to explore the desert. We had an afternoon pickup scheduled so we thought it was a good day to sleep in a little and hit up the hotel pool for the morning. The pool was nice and they had a hot tub as well, although there was little temperature difference we could tell between the two it was nice to just relax into the day.
We ended up walking to a local place for lunch, an Indian restaurant nearby. The food was fantastic, we did chuckle a little as we noticed that we were the only ones who were provided silverware as the other patrons were more local and would eat more traditionally with their hands. I guess they had us pegged.
Red Dunes – Dune Bashing
So we were picked up from our hotel and headed over to our Land Cruiser for the day. We were split up, Cecilia in the front and me in the back with a few others and we were off for about a 45 minute or so drive out to the desert. We stopped at a desert oasis first for a small break before we were off to go dune bashing. I joked it was a little of the “money pit” for people to jump on some ATV’s to charge around the sands, grab some food and hang out. There were some swings we jumped on for a little while and then to quench the thirst we grabbed a strawberry Fanta and split that. Oh that brought me back to childhood and tasted like the soda we would make at home.
Soon we were off and got the oh, this is why we stopped moment. We observed that a lot of the other vehicles who were joining the caravan were releasing air from the tires. Makes sense, need them to be looser to handle the weight to grip in the sand. Dune Bashing was fun, not quite what I expected but fun nonetheless. I was thinking we were going to be in dune buggies, but we were staying in the land cruisers. I did notice they came equipped with roll bars. I was so happy I took motion sickness pills before we took off because I am sure I would have lost my lunch, we whipped about, twisted and turned and bounced around. It was a blast, I thought for sure there was one time we were going to roll. When we came to a stop we had a few moments to walk around and saw the guys were moving around the cars. Looks like on that last turn the tire popped off the wheel. So they are shoveling it out so they can put it back on and refill it up a bit.
We continued on whipping about and charging closer to the big red dune/mountain that was off in the distance. Closer to there we stopped so people could get out and enjoy the dunes and enjoy a little bit of golden hour. Cecilia and I climbed to the top of a nearby dune and the wind picked up and the fine sand on the top whipped up and that sand gets everywhere. We were covered, and this sand would not wipe off! It is a grittier sand and now we were covered head to toe. I guess as a souvenir for us to take home.
Once we were done enjoying the desert we were dropped off to have a BBQ dinner and an evening show. We stopped to see and hang out with the Falcon they had, and then wandered outside of the camp to enjoy the sunset. On wandering into the camp we hung out in back and smoked a little shisha, grabbed some food and watched the entertainment (a light show, fire baton dance and belly dancing).
When we got back to our hotel we had to do a good shake out of our clothes to try to remove some of the sand but it wasn’t quite letting go. Free exfoliation! Hahaha. The tub was so thick of sand after our showers… oops.
Desert Day 2
So we had elected for our last full day to end with a luxury tour in the desert so we again had half a day to ourselves in the morning. We started decided to head over to Jumeriah Beach and then hit up the Mall of the Emirates before our pickup for the evening.
Morning Fun
We called an Uber, no issue this time. Yay! We scored bit time with this driver, he is the #1 rated driver in all of Dubai and has been so for many years. He is amazing. He was our own mini tour guide and telling us about everything, gave us tips on where to go and what to see. We wanted to head to Jumeriah beach so we could see the Burj Al Arab (since we missed this on the 1st day tour) and then head to the mall. He took us to the prime spot on the beach and waited for us to return, we went down to the water and hoisted our skirts so we could put our feet in. We have officially now been in the Arabian Gulf (that’s what they call it but to American’s and I believe on the World Map they call it the Persian Gulf). I waded in to about mid calf (with waves) and wouldn’t you know it the next wave as Cecilia grabbed my picture was huge and hit me almost up to my butt so it shocked me. Cecilia was in stiches at my expression. Hahaha! So we grabbed our pictures, I had opted to leave my big camera at home and had my phone/point and shoot but due to the AC to the heat difference I couldn’t use the point and shoot to take pictures as it was so fogged up and wasn’t in the mind to defog anytime soon.
As we went back to the car we stopped to do our best to wipe off all sand, we didn’t want to get sand in the guy’s car. He is so nice, we didn’t want to make a mess. This man is prepared for everything, beyond mints, gum and water, he had towels for us, had extra carpets he was able to put down for our sandy feet and everything. Amazing guy! He took us next to the Mall of the Emirates and we tried to tip him but he wouldn’t accept so we just left some money in the back as he deserved it. He definitely gave us a good lasting impression of Uber in UAE. The glitz and glam are back, all of the top end shopping is here. We even found life sized monopoly being played. Mr. Monopoly with the spectacles was there and they even had a small jail to put people in until they were allowed to leave on their next turn.
We finally found the ski hill, and yes from the Dubai Mall it is far. Hahaha. We watched the skiers, the tubers, and the zorbing that they had in the play area. We decided to grab a quick lunch at an Iranian restaurant nearby, it was quite good. Neither one of us had Iranian food before so it was nice to try something new. We took the metro back to our hotel and it was so quick and easy, definitely a recommended way to travel to get about Dubai.
Luxury Tour
We stopped back to our hotel to change and get ready for the afternoon/evening and soon were picked up by our guide Wesam, who is top-notch amazing! Did I mention we had such a great last day?! So Wesam picked us up and peppered us with questions as to how we found them, and decided to choose them for the day. We found them through TripAdviser and with such great reviews thought this was a shoe in decision. Wesam does a lot of the public relations/social media for the company and today he has decided to play tour guide and was our guide for the day.
So we had signed up for a luxury tour of the desert through the national conservation with vintage Land Rovers. We were curious to see how different the experiences would be from yesterday to today, and I have to say it was a night and day difference. So if you’re going and planning on doing more than one day I will have to say you will not be disappointed.
When we got to the conservation there was fleet of 1950’s and early 1960’s Land Rovers. Wesam even has one with his name on it so we had the classic green Land Rover for our tour. Some people were taking a camel tour so there were outfitted camels. They put is in traditional headwear, black scarves for the ladies and red/white checkered ones for the guys.
Off we went on our tour and were almost immediately greeted by the Onyx who were grazing on some feeders placed out for them. We continued on to some dunes and sand here is so different from the day before, very fine and soft. It was so peaceful driving out and around, we found a dune to claim as our own for awhile and just take in the beauty of the desert.
We continued on our trek and our next stop was to watch a falconry display. They provided us some sparkling date juice, which was quite nice and refreshing and we settled in to watch the sunset and learn how they train the falcons and continue to exercise them for the hunt. The peregrine falcon was exquisite, I’m a bit of a birder at home so I enjoyed taking in the magnificence of what they can do.
From there we went over to their Bedouin style camp. They invited us in for coffee and dates (been a long time since I’ve had one of those (ba dum dum)). Cecilia and I got a henna tattoo, that woman is so quick and its an amazing art. Then we wandered over to go for a camel ride. We had an amazing dinner and while we had dinner they had a few dancers showing us some traditional style dancing. After that we smoked some shisha and relaxed into the evening. At the end of the night we were ushered outside of the camp for a moonlight show for their “Flame of Arabia” dance. It was truly magnificent. We were there during the full moon and they dancers had containers of embers that they danced to and with the lighting it was amazing.
On our way back to swap cars and return to the City we were able to see the camel spiders that someone earlier in the day told us about. Not something I would want to mess with, they looked more like a cross between a scorpion and a spider rather than a true spider. They moved quickly and would gravitate towards movement. They get quite big (even though this guy was maybe half the size of my hand they can get much larger) and they jump and bite. I do not want to come across one of them accidentally I would think.
It truly was a great way to wrap up our trip, Wesam was an amazing guide and very interactive. This program was offered through Platinum Heritage and you could tell they paid attention to every detail to ensure you would have a wonderful experience. Out of the 2 desert experiences if you can only do one I would contact them hands down and they have many other options for tours so I think with them you can’t go wrong.
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