Safari anyone?

Today was probably the most fun I have had since I have been here.  Yesterday one of my fellow LT's, Janelle, invited me to safari her and a bunch of other teachers were going on the next day.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to network and not only that but to just simply get out of the hotel room and see more of the city so I said I would go.  I kinda forgot about it, then Janelle gave me a call reminding me and to tell me that the time had been moved up.  Well, thirty minutes later I am on bus with 8 other teachers headed to the outskirts of Dubai for a safari.

A safari is not what you might think.  Its nothing like the tours you get in the African grasslands.  Safari's here are also known as "busting dunes."  Basically all you need is an SUV, then let some of the air out of the tires for traction, find a desolate area with tons of natural dunes, find some poor suckers that are crazy enough to get in your backseat, then drive your vehicle up and down those dunes like there is no tomorrow.  You will know if you are doing it right if your passengers, including your male passengers, are screaming like little girls and are silently and, sometimes not so silently, praying that your SUV does not roll over on its side as you swerve and speed down dunes at a pace your passengers are less than comfortable with to say the least.  It feels like a roller coaster, but here you don't have the rails to let you know what is coming up, just all of a sudden you drop 25 feet and race off to the top of another dune, fishtailing, swerving, and drifting (like Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift).  It was great.  We stopped at the top of one of the dunes to take pictures, we got to see a great view of the expanse of the desert.

Next we winded through a trail that took us deep into the desert to a fort like structure.  Inside there were bathrooms and smaller shops for tourist.  But before we went in there was a camel riding station outside.  Everyone wanted to ride and I knew I would too.  How can I travel across the world to the Middle East, into the middle of the desert and not ride a camel?  It just had to be done so I did, and got a picture on it. I also got a picture with a falcon.  When we were done we went inside the fort and there were tables set up for dinner.  There were no chairs, you sat on a pillow on the ground.  The food was pretty good, a running theme since I have been in Abu Dhabi.  There was also a little shop where the girls got henna on their hands and arms.  I actually had not ever heard of it before I started looking to come over, but henna is an inked art pattern design painted on women's bodies, usually the arms and legs but also the ankles and feet. It is not permanent; it's very popular here. At first it looks a little freaky, like the girl has some sort of skin disease, but once you get used to it the designs are attractive (this lady did flowers on our LT's)  and it is one of those extravagant things girls do for special occasions to get dolled up, along with getting nails done, hair done, etc. 

So our safari drew to a close and we all piled back in the SUV's (there were about 6 of them because of the other tourist that were there).  Our road back was just as fun as the first time, but even crazier because by this time it was pitch black, except for his head lights of course.  We really didn't know where the curves or drops were before we actually were curving or dropping.  He gunned it this time too, racing past the SUV in front of us to be the first to make it back to the starting point.

All in all, great experience.