Category: camels

The Desert Safari desert camp experience (with videos)

In my last couple of posts I discussed the buggy rides and dune bashing experiences in Dubai. To conclude the journey in this post I will take you through the evening camp event.
After the sun down we settled into the evening camp for an evening filled with a short performance and dinner. The camp has a restroom area, and some stalls for food, henna, and hookah facilities for the visitor. As is the case all over Dubai, you are treated like a VIP if you have the money. The more the money you pay, the better the treatment. This is evident in everything – from the vehicles that get you to the camp, to the food offered, to the seating, to special photographs with eagles, etc. The food for VIPs is unlimited and is served at the place you are seated, and typically with a quanity much more than you need.

It is all about satisfying guests as per what they pay but I sincerely wish the people providing all these facilities do think of the needy as well. I am a strong believer that food must not be wasted and the situation at the desert camp is somewhat on the contrary.

Performances (fire and belly dance)

Coming to the performances, there were two performances one by a male and the other one by a female. The dance by the male was something involving colourful clothes and tricks with fire – the whole stage is lit up with the light and its a spectacle to watch and enjoy. There is a lot of spinning in the dance and also doing lots of tasks when that goes on which is in itself not so easy a task. You can take a look at the video below

The performance by the female is also one of the main reasons people sign up for the camp evening event – the famous belly dance. And for those of you who think it is very sexy and the likes – let me tell you one thing – it is simply not easy for a normal person to do this dance. Even for the talented in this field it is an enormous level of energy burn and the level of composure and fitness needed to finish off with this for a whole 15-20 minutes is nothing short of humongous. You can take a look at a part of the dance in the video below. One look at the hair spin the lady gives will give you a dizzy feeling.

Food options

As you would have guessed, the food options for vegetarians is pretty minimal. At best there is the sweet (like a jamun) dipped in date sauce. Add some salads made from veggies, and some really bad mixed rice (not the biryani types) and of course Pepsi/coke & some dessert in the desert that gets over even before it starts being served! You know what I’m talking about now.

Toilet facilities

In one word : SAD.
In many words the toilets aren’t maintained properly. There doesn’t seem to be proper drainage system making the whole place stink. It’s really bad and the management of the place can certainly look for better bio toilet options.

Other facilities

There are other things to do at the camp. Like a bit of camel ride, or smoking some hookah. Plenty of coke on the floor. If you are willing to pay more you get corn etc. There are obviously some mehndi stalls which help you to sport some good designs on your hands or feet. There are also photo opps with Arabic clothing which would cost you a bomb.

Conclusions

The entire desert safari experience is a one off experience that will let you enjoy the desert in its raw and full glory. It will give you a glimpse of some fantastic buggy riding, some scintillating dune bashing that’ll leave you mesmerised. Further the glorious sunsets and the evening performances will leave you dazzled at the end of the journey. Although you will be tired while returning home, rest assured these set of adventures will be etched in your memory forever.

The desert safari sand dune bashing experience – an event that you willforever remember!

Some history …

In my previous post you would have read about the buggy ride experience that we had at the Desert Safari tour. The day continued towards the late afternoon when the sun went down a bit and after the buggy rides, we rode our hummer onward to the dune bashing area.

Dune bashing landscape

When you reach a certain region of the desert you can notice that the landscape automatically changes to drifting sands which form small mounds and the whole region looks a bit hilly with some small mounds leading to larger bigger slopes. By the time our earlier buggy ride was over, the driver had by then reduced the air/nitrogen in the tyres of our hummer substantially which made the car adaptable to being driven in the sand.

With lesser air/nitrogen in the tyres the hummer suddenly swerved from the main highway right into the sand dunes. And before we knew it, the famous “Boushret Kheir” song from Hussain Al Jassmi, the Arab world’s proclaimed artist, was rocking the hummer already. And then began the roller coaster ride.

For first timers this would be nerve wracking a bit, but you must understand that these drivers drive here every single day of the year mostly and they are extremely well trained.

All you need to do, just like me is to hold on to the vehicle and enjoy the ride. Of course I was terrified of having a slide into the sand mounds on the hummer and I did not get a chance to drive it either due to obvious reasons of safety. But then after few seconds it was just pure joy. Up and down and up and down a convoy of our hummer with a few other Toyota land cruisers dotted the sand dune landscape for a whole 10-15 minutes till we cried in joy just wanting more of that over and over again.

Sunset point

After the mood changing sand dune bashing was over we reached what is known as a sun set point. Here we can spend a while to see the sun go down although we needed to get away before it became too dark lest we could not see where we were going.

It is not recommended to drive here alone during night and it is very easy for someone to get lost here. And without food or water you are inviting trouble. At this sunset point, we can see how the wind shifts the sands from one place to another. If you are the types who enjoys the small things in life then you will enjoy this.

Camel camp

From here we drove to the camel camp where we spent a while looking at camels feeding and being taken care of. It is not much of stuff to see but you do get to see a camp overlooking the highway from where you can see stunning desert sunsets like nowhere else.

After this most interesting drive was done, the hummer tyres were inflated again to full capacity and we made our way to the final part of the evening – the desert safari camp for an evening filled with food and performances. Look forward to my next post where I will bring to you glimpses of those events!

Stunning views of the sunset across the highway …