Desert Camping

When I think of camping, I imagine tall trees, clear streams, waterfalls perhaps... maybe a lake... Anyway, I certainly don't imagine miles of empty sand dunes.  But that is exactly the scenery that Lacey and I had on our recent camping trip outside Dubai.  We road tripped out to Al Sharja, a neighboring emirate, and then turned our 4-wheel drives off the road directly into the desert.  After tooling around for an hour or so (partly to find a good camping spot, partly to have fun "duning" in the sand) we settled down and set up camp.  Luckily, none of the SUVs in our caravan got stuck, though

 there were some close calls sliding down the sides of the 50+ foot mountains of sand.

Finally we arrived, set up camp, and started a fire; we set up a disc golf course around the edges of the "bowl" we were in and played a couple rounds before it began getting dark.  Then we made some grub on a grill someone had brought. While we sat around the fire talking and eating, we decided that we would play a game of Capture the Flag.  The question was, how would we see where the flag was?  Miraculously, someone had an inkling that we might play this game and brought glow-sticks to use as flags and also to hang around each person's neck.  It worked perfectly!  The blue team won (go blue team!).

When it was time to head to bed, we crawled into our cheap tent we picked up at Carfur, the Wal-Mart of the Middle East, and went to sleep to the sound of nothing...

Here are a few more photos you might enjoy taking a look at.  All of these enlarge if you click on them.

First Impressions

It's been quite awhile since we arrived here in Dubai, but with everything going on, this is the first time we have been able to sit down and begin this oh-so-important blog.  Right now, Lacey is dust-mopping the tile floors of our apartment -- a chore that is ceaselessly needed in a place where, instead of a visible bubble of smog around the city, there is a visible bubble of dust from all of the construction.  I'm sitting on the futon gazing out the glass doors of the balcony (working diligently on this blog) at a multitude of tower cranes each working on a separate 15+ story building.  I can't say exactly how many buildings are going up in our immediate vicinity right now because there are just so many.  My guess would be around 8 or 9.  I just cleaned the balcony last week and now it is completely covered in construction dust once more.  Even being on the 10th floor of Art IV, our apartment, this happens constantly.  There is talk about the economic crisis affecting Dubai, but there is little that points to this notion.  We see scores of new architectural wonders going up all over the city and Bentleys, Aston Martins, Rolls Royces, and the like daily.  However, Lacey has noticed a significant decrease in traffic since the December lay-offs all over the city.

Dubai is an interesting and exciting place to be.  We come in earshot of 4 or 5 different languages a day, witness firsthand the vast disparity between the social classes, and see new cultural and technological features of this part of the world almost too often to discern their qualities.  We enjoy this energy here.  Waking up in a new place every morning has the effect of invigorating the spirit.  Even if the uniqueness of Dubai comes from its utter wealth, there is a depth to our experience here that we can't imagine finding in a familiar place.

After this, Lacey and I will be writing in small doses about different aspects of our lives, the city, and the goings-on here.  I hope you all stay connected!