The Desert safari trip ?

What is the desert safari trip?

.....in Africa the safari is popular,, you see the great wild life... lions, tigers, hyenas, you name it.

In Dubai there isnt much wild life to see except the trained expensive eagles (touristic versions) and camels of course!

In the end of June 2005, i went on my first desert safari trip with two Hospitality Club members: Branka and Julia to a desert safari... was interesting to do, they pick you up from your hotel or home and drive south west on the highway to Al Ain for about 30 minutes, then from the highway will go offroad into the desert a few minutes your already on the desert dunes.. from there the standard trip will include the following:

1. Sand dune bashing, not easy to do and only done by professional drivers, baisically driving up and down on the sand dunes. There are a few breaks cause people will start to feel sick, the feeling is similar to being on a rollercoaster ride. The car used is a Toyota Landcruiser, powerful car and very spacious, easily you can fit 7 people in the car including the driver.
2. The Camp: After an hour or two of dune bashing, the driver will take you to the camp, and usually the camp is shared by several desert safari companies, so there will be 10 or 15 different cars means up to 60 or 70+ people will share the same camp. the camp will have camel rides, henna tattoo drawing, belly dancer show, arabic costumes you can use to take photos and the most important open buffet BBQ food.
3. Later after eating and having a few drinks, they take you back home.

The full program is usually 6 to 7 hours long, they pick you up after noon (1 or 2 pm) then they drop you off around 9 to 10 pm.

The price is usually depending on the company doing the trip and can be between AED 175 to 250 (EUR 38 to 55) for the whole trip including food and soft drinks. You can add the quad bike rides but its pretty expensive the one i did once was an added price of AED 100 per 30 min meaning its AED 200 for 1 hour. (EUR 20 for 30 min and EUR 40 for 1 hour). But it was really amazing fun!

Here are some photos of the first desert safari i did with Branka and Julia in end of June 2005



The Landcruisers doing the dune bashing!



Dont try this at home!

Branka and Julia enjoying the desert



Ashraf and Branka




Branka's great face expressions while the camel ride starts!


Branka's henna tattoo!



Belly Dancer doing her thing!


Branka and Julia decided to become nationals :)

Sheikh Zayed Road by night

I've been wanting to post the Dubai night shots for some time, the amazing Sheikh Zayed Road has a lot of attractive buildings that look amazing by night.

What is even more amazing is that Sheikh Zayed Road used to be just a normal street that crosses the long desert and takes you from Bur Dubai to Abu Dhabi.

During the past years, Sheikh Zayed Road is under continuous construction and under development, from 2 lanes into 4 lanes, a few more lanes and service road, today it is a 10 lane highway that goes up to 12 and 14 lanes from area to area, and is under very heavy traffic during rush hour traffic. the buildings on SZR are the most atttractive in all Dubai and even UAE, different sizes and shapes from the popular Emirates Towers to the luxury hotels like the Fairmont, Shangri-La, Dusit, Rotana Tower and Murooj Rotana, jumping from 5 story buildings to 50 or 60 floor residential towers. and there is much much more to come, as Dubai is always under construction, the infamous Burj Dubai is still under construction but already popular and standing tall on SZR and can be seen and recognized when you pass by its construction area.

Welcome to the start..........

Ok, i just decided to do this, i've been wanting to do it since a very long time, not yet sure what i will be writing here... mostly memos and photos of what i see and do, im pretty much a photography and travel freak, i enjoy traveling to new and exciting locations, i also love to meet local people from those areas and get a feel of the local culture thru them.

i'll try to make an introduction about myself in the next few lines, so for those who dont know me, its ur chance to get to know me better! ... here goes:

I am living right now in Dubai since mid 2005, i travel (not as often as i'd like) to locations in Middle East, Europe and around the world for vacation and also for business.

i was born and lived a few years in Tripoli, Libya... raised and lived most of my life in Saudi Arabia, completed university in Amman, Jordan. I worked for 5 years in Saudi Arabia in the auditing field, and just moved to Dubai mid 2005.

I think I will be writing more about Dubai and my travels in the next posts. Meanwhile pls be patient.....!

See you next time!