Camels. In the desert.

Abu Dhabi, UAE 

Day 4.

After faffing around on the internet for bloody ages trying to find out which desert safari was the best I decided to stuff it and just ask the dudes at our hotel to sort it.

Sort it they did. At around three in the afternoon a lovely young Yemeni dude called Mohammed driving a huge Toyota Landcuriser picked up Mary and me at our hotel. 

The poor bugger was struggling to contact another pair of travelers who where set to join us on our adventure, so he handed his mobile to me to negotiate our rendezvous.

With the pair of affable Canadians and my mum in the back seat I was up front with Mohammed, asking him dorky questions about his family. (A wife and four kids, not bad for a dude who couldn’t be much older than me).

It wasn’t too long until the highway stretched in front of us with only sand and small shrubs to the left and right.

Now it was time for some dune bashing. Peeling off from the highway we met up with a convoy of some 20 other tourist laden four-wheel drives. 

Mohammed took us screaming up and down 20m high dunes, taking especial pleasure in driving along the crest of extremely steep dunes, and waggling the steering wheel, threatening to spill us over the sides.

The rest of the safari involved a visit to a camel farm, a chance to run up and down the dunes, more dune bashing and finally dinner and shisha smoking at a “traditional Bedouin village”.

It was a pretty great day. Lots of fun. 

Once you frame out all the other tourists, you can make it seem like you're the only dude there with a camera.

Camels. They are pretty great.

I can't stress enough how fun this was.

Tourists love the hell out of the desert.

Mary in the desert.

I swear to god that I did not plant this pack of camels. In the desert. This was probably the best thing I saw all day.

Shoes were a bad choice.

Mohammed, probably the best driver in the UAE.

A "traditional" Australian beer, in a "traditional" bedouin camp.There are at least two thing wrong with this image.

If smoking cigarettes was like smoking shisha. Everyone would smoke all the time.