On our final day in Dubai we planned to go out into the desert to get an authentic cultural experience by partaking in a Desert Safari. We originally planned to get lunch at a Japanese restaurant before leaving, but seeing as we were up until 5am the night before, that plan was out the window. Instead, many of us woke up around 1:30pm and ate lunch at home. Murt's housekeeper Jean had prepared some lunch for us: spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread, which was some much-needed energy before we hit the road. While we were eating, Murt's younger sister Jannat arrived home from school. Murt's mom called her out early so she could join us in the desert.

Around 2:30pm our safari driver arrived at Murt's house to take us into the desert. The desert regions of the Emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi that are within a reasonable driving distance to the major cities are home to dozens of desert safari camps where you can go to partake in activities like dune bashing (driving around in an SUV on the sand dunes), ATV riding, camel and horseback riding, and sandboarding. The tour we had booked took us to a spot in the desert of Abu Dhabi about 80 minutes drive from Murt's house.

We got to the desert safari place, and were transferred to a different SUV with a different driver to start dune bashing. The first three minutes was incredibly thrilling, but then we were abruptly brought back to the safari camp and told to get out of the car and go ride the ATVs or the camels. We were confused because the tour we booked was supposed to include 25-30 minutes of dune bashing, and three minutes is simply not enough.

We proceeded into the camp to a sectioned-off area where we could ride ATVs. There was very little safety training: they just had us get on the ATVs, showed us where the acceleration and brake was, and sent us off. It was a bit disappointing because the ATV area was quite small, and extremely flat, and also the ATVs did not go very fast (it seemed like they were capped at 14mph).

After riding ATVs for about 15 minutes, we moved over to the camel riding section. Included in the package we had booked was a 30 second camel ride (essentially to get on the camel and have enough time for a couple photos). There was a guy there who was trying to sell us a longer camel ride, I think his starting price was 50 AED per person (about $12) for what would end up being a 10 minute ride, but Murt negotiated him down to 100 AED for all 6 of us, before we decided that we didn't want to do the longer camel ride anyway (we were annoyed at the thought of giving them more money). Mel and Irena rode the free camel ride, Murt and Sacha and I passed, and Jannat refused because she was upset at the poor treatment of the camel.

We wanted to go sandboarding so we wandered around the perimeter of the camp looking for the area where someone had gestured towards where a sandboard was theoretically located. We found a half-broken sandboard located behind a parked SUV, but there were not any hills that were steep enough to sandboard down easily.

About half an hour before sunset, Murt convinced the tour operators to find a driver to take us dune bashing again. We got in a third SUV with a third driver who took us further out in the desert for an approximately ten minute dune bashing session. This was certainly more enjoyable than the first session, but cumulatively we still had not hit the 25-30 minutes promised. But at this point, the sun was about to set and so we would not be able to stay out on the dunes.

We returned to the camp where dinner was not quite ready yet, but there were a bunch of people trying to sell things. For example, there was a snack bar with chips, juices, and more. Murt purchased a corn cob for 10 AED that was originally priced at 25. At this point we decided to nickname him Murt the Unscammable because he is so good at bargaining. There was free chai and water, and Irena and Mel got henna on their hands. Eventually, we sat down for a show in the twilight. There was a couple different types of dancing and a fire spinner. Finally the food was served, but it was quite disappointing. After dinner was served there was one final dance act and then we were abruptly told to leave: the instant the dance ended the MC said over the microphone "thank you for coming, your drivers are waiting for you, goodbye" We left and got home much earlier than expected.

Back at Murt's house we bought some ingredients to bake brownies his parents as a gift to thank them for their hospitality. We ordered some desi-style shawarmas to eat while we baked the brownies. Since all of us had flights early the next morning, we figured there was no point in sleeping. We sat around the TV and sang karaoke. Just before 2am, Jannat went to sleep (she had to wake up at 5am the next morning for school). I figured that was my cue so I called a taxi for the airport.

My travel day will be continued in the next blog entry.