Spent our Thanksgiving afternoon and evening on a spectacular Dubai Safari, far out in the Desert. We could even see the mountains spearing us from Oman from our location. The Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve hosted our experience, complete with 1950’s open-air Land Rovers. In the photo below, I can be seen riding in the front seat, Julie is in the back facing the camera waving, along with Cath and her daughter Lizzie.
Me in the native kefiya. They are often tribal but the generic red denotes southern Arabs, such as UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Falconry is big in the UAE, especially among the royalty, and the peregrine falcon is the national bird. It also holds historic significance as the early beduins caught them, trained them, and used them for hunting. Surprisingly, they are a migratory bird, not native to the area year round (they can’t survive the summer heat). They are the fastest birds on the planet with a stunning top speed of 240mph. Given their perfect teardrop shape, they were the design model for the B2B bomber.
The Ubers of the desert . . .
Coffee making at our camp site . . .
Bread making. (a flat pita-like bread)
Center of our camp where we watched the stars and experienced some native music and dance performances
Henna is a thing throughout the Arab world. Here, Julie is getting some ink! Her entire hand took less than 2 minutes.
Chicken kabobs being grilled
Below is a photo of Orex, the national animal of the UAE. They were almost hunted out of existence but, due to some conservancy efforts involving an Arizona preserve, their population is now around 70,000.
Our falcon trainer
Earlier in the day, we visited the Dubai Miracle Garden
Butterfly pavilion next to the garden
Lebanese lunch at one of our fave restaurants. Below is a dessert of vanilla ice cream covered in cotton candy
Love the henna designs!
ReplyDeleteYes, incredible how fast they draw them.
DeleteSuper …so much fun
ReplyDelete