On to another week here in the Middle East, and onto another ManBlog post. This week we are enjoying a short work week-apparently there is a holiday called Al Isra Wal Miraj, which celebrates the ascension of the prophet Mohammad, which naturally denotes a long weekend! So what are we going to do? Take a trip to Oman to renew our Visas. We found a really cheap flight (through Swiss Airlines…who knew!) and will be on our way Wednesday night. To be honest I never thought I’d go to Oman, but at the same time I never heard much about Oman to even entertain the thought. We will be far away from the craziness in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. I have heard Oman has some of the best beaches in the world, so we are looking forward to spending some time at one or more of them during our brief visit.
We had a really good time this past weekend. Arabian Nights Tours (fitting name eh?) took us out to the desert for a sand escapade. They call four-wheeling through the sand dunes in SUV’s “Dune Bashing.” We were picked up at our place by the Toyota LandCruiser and piled into the back seat. We were joined by a family that were already in the car-a couple from Houston Texas, and a dad from Columbia and his daughter Camilla (they were all related somehow). Camilla was the greatest. The moment we got into the car she said, “You guys are going to love going on the sand! This is my fourth time going!” If seven-year old Camilla could handle Dune Bashing…then I could handle some Dune Bashing.
We took the 45 minute journey away from the city to the middle of the desert. The tour guide took a few minutes to deflate the tires a bit…to bashing standards and then we were off. I won’t lie the ride was nuts! I held in my girl screams and covered them up with laughter. Some of the turns/hills/spins we took were pretty crazy. We all had a really good time. After the bashing we ended up at a camp-still in the middle of nowhere-where they have tables, souvenirs, and smoking/drinking lounges where everyone meets up for an Arabic barbeque. Also just outside of the camp were boards for sandboarding, ATVs, and camels to ride. I had a really good time. It was definitely the greatest night in Dubai so far.
It’s time again for a few more facts about this foreign land:
-Kilometers are used instead of miles
-Liters are used instead of gallons
-Meters are used instead of feet
-Celsius is used instead of Fahrenheit
-The white “head robes” mean the men are Emirati (from the UAE)
-Red and white head robes mean the men are from Saudi Arabia
-Black and white head robes mean the men are from the north
-Portions for food are SMALL everywhere here…difficult to fill me up
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