Monday, June 15, 2009

Night Safari

After discussing it over the course of last week, we finally decided to go ahead and reserve our places on a ‘night safari’ last Friday. At around 4pm, we all piled into the Toyota Land Cruiser that picked us up at our hotel and drove about half an hour outside of Dubai to the middle of an expansive desert. With sand as far as the eye could see, fifteen Land Cruisers lined up one by one and began to let the air out of their tires in preparation for the ‘dune bashing’ that was up first on the evening’s agenda. None of us really knew exactly what was in store as we waited, but when we got back into the SUV, the real fun began. We immediately began plowing through the dunes; jumping over some and sliding down others.
After about half an hour of getting tossed around our SUV on the dunes, we drove to another part of the desert to watch the sun set. Upon arriving at the look-out point we were greeted by a man with three camels who gave camel rides as the sun went down over the dunes. Once the sun had set, we drove a bit more to a large camp which had been set up to re-enact the camps of the traditional Bedouin tribes. From there the night went on with various festivities including henna tattoos, smoking shisha, an Arabic barbeque and of course, a belly dancer. After the food and festivities, the lights were turned off so that our group could take in the night sky before once again piling into our Land Cruiser and returning to our hotel. All in all it was a great day, a fantastic experience and a lot of fun!

-Kate

4 comments:

  1. They are NOT TRIBES!!!!!!

    THEY ARE COMMUNITIES!!!!

    GIVE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD THE RESPECT THEY DESERVE. WE DO NOT REFER TO OUR COMMUNITIES IN THE WEST AS "TRIBES" AND I REPEATEDLY ASK YOU TO RESPECT THIS IMPORTANT NUANCE; AS MUCH AS "TRIBES" SUGGEST A LOWER LEVEL OF SOPHISTICATION, SO WE MUST RESIST USING THESE LOADED TERMS TO STUDY, ENGAGE and FINALLY LIVE WITH PEOPLES AROUND THE WORLD. KATE, THESE ARE ITINERATE COMMUNITIES THAT ARE NOT FIXED, AND WHOSE COMPOSITION IS CONSTANTLY NEGOTIATED. OK? COMMUNITIES!!!!

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