A Dune with a View

Hello from Qatar again! Today we began our last day in this wonderful country. This was the day I had waited for as today we went dune bashing. After a few days of challenges trying to set up the dunes trip, we finally settled with the company that today we would be heading out.

Our driver Sami picked us up at the villa and we drove about an hour plus to the south of Qatar. When we arrived at the beginning of the dunes, we got out of the land cruiser and while Sami let the air out of the tires, it makes it easier to turn, we got to see our first camels of the trip. We were instantly ushered to get on the camels and we were taken for a short ride around the little camp. It was fun to ride on the back of the camel and the guide snapped pictures of us. Kristen's camel was really noisy and was grunting and yelling like he was unhappy! It was a blast!

Once we got down from the camels, we hopped back in the landcruiser and away we went. It was awesome! We went up and down the dunes and were bounced around all over the place as we sped through the desert on the way to the inland sea. We stopped to take some pictures along the coast and the views were just amazing. We even got to stand on the slope of one of the dunes and it was really wild how you could stand and not slide down. Of course our shoes then got filled with sand!! We also got to see some herds of camels roaming in the desert, they weren't wild camels though so Sami could pull right up to them in the car and we got some really great up close pictures!!

We went for over an hour and arrived at the inland sea, which is bordered by Saudi Arabia on the other side. You can see the Saudi cliffs from where we stopped and we took some great pictures. After that we went to the Qatar International Adventures camp and got a little break. This is where groups camp overnight if they had signed up for that trip. We got a drink and were able to try on some traditional Qatari clothing.

We hit the road back to the villa and got ourselves cleaned up so we can head out to dinner tonight, our last night in Qatar. It has been a wonderful time in this country and I am sad we have to come back so soon. Looking forward to getting my sleep patterns back to normal though!!