Have you ever been skiing? Right, properly, imagine that gliding sensation, but as opposed to skis, believe you’re in a Toyota Land Cruiser, and rather than snow, consider it’s sand. That’s what dune bashing looks like.
A day or so inside the desolate tract is vital if you’re in Doha. You want to look at the sand, no longer just the skyscrapers. And it doesn’t take long to leave the cosmopolitan bustle at the back of you as you velocity towards the dunes. Within half an hour or so of driving south from the town, you’ll arrive at a wasteland camp: multiple small tents wherein you may drink hot sugary tea, watched by way of the resident falcon, a handful of camels which you can ride, and a few obliging men who helped our driving force deflate our Land Cruiser tires. Tires need to be flatter in the wasteland than on the tarmac to keep away from getting caught. You don’t need to get grounded within the warmness.
“Are there snakes out there?” I ask our guide, peering out on the dunes from beneath my hand, protecting my eyes from the sun. “Course,” he replied, shrugging. “It’s the desert. And scorpions. But the black ones are okay. It’s the brown ones which can be bad.”
Tires deflated, we get lower back inside the automobile and set off, aiming at once at a dune as steep as a mountain. Up we go at quite a lick, Frank Sinatra singing My Way on the radio. And then, like on a rollercoaster, abruptly, we’re sliding down the other aspect of it.
Again and again, we climb up a dune, or roar along the aspect of 1, and go with the flow down a sandy slope as if it’s a crimson run in the Alps. It’s nicely exhilarating, rocking to and fro and fending off sand bumps. The top velocity is about 40mph, “otherwise, you can lose the car’s bumpers, haha!” laughs our driving force as he speeds towards every other crest. Qataris like the wilderness whilst it’s windy, he tells me so that the dune surfaces are swept as clean as glass. It’s a weekday, so ours is the simplest automobile snaking over the panorama. But on the weekends, locals come in their very own 4x4s in droves and try to out-do each other, supplying a sand show for onlookers.
On a seaside set lower back from the ocean, shimmering inside the distance, is another wasteland camp – Regency Sealine Camp. We head there for thick Arabic coffee. Imagine it just like the Soho Farmhouse of the wasteland. You can live for a day. You can live for a night or numerous nights if you’re after the total Arabic glamping. Enjoy. ‘They have 15 huge ensuite tents (don’t panic, completely air-conditioned) for overnight or weekend trips and a string of canopied day beds at the white-sand seashore for lolling on at some stage in the day. The aquamarine sea looks like something you’d see on a honeymooner’s postcard. Stay for a lunch of lamb skewers and mint tea or a single day for dinner via candlelight.
There’s a campfire every night, and the next morning, if you experience heading out into the dunes again, you may have a move at sand-boarding. Or, in case you’ve were given your youngsters with you, they can romp around the playground at the same time as you read your book in between dips in the sea. There’s nothing around the camp for miles, so the simplest element that could disturb you is a wandering camel. Truly, an oasis
