In The Desert

If you can cast your mind back to a couple of posts ago you may remember I was in Dubai briefly, where these photos were taken. Whilst in the desert we got caught in a sandstorm. I’ve never seen a sandstorm before and it was incredible. It looked like swirls of red cartoon smoke rising off the dunes, except very heavy smoke that moved more like a cloth in water.

We travelled through the dunes by camel, and later I tried quad bikes. Both were brilliant! I love camels; they’re very intelligent animals who always look like they’re smiling. They are also incredibly well adapted to survive in the desert; they can walk continuously for 18 hours and smell water from over 2km away. I was given this headscarf by our camel guide to stop the sand from destroying my face (sandstorms look cool but are quite painful). Between the headscarf and the fact that my camel seemed equally as taken with me as I was with him, the rest of our group kept joking about me having secret Bedouin roots.

The Bedouin seem a really interesting people despite the fact that the 20th century has seen huge changes to their culture. Traditionally the Bedouin love good deeds and followed a strict code of ethics in which everybody in the tribe needed to learn a craft (women trained alongside men). They are incredibly generous hosts, giving up their most prized possessions in order to be deemed hospitable. Despite the hardships desert life must bring there is something remarkable when you think about people living amongst the dunes, following the stars and trusting your camel to lead you to water.

P.S. If you’re thinking, “I thought she was pro-animal rights? What is she doing riding a camel?” then my thoughts have been previously documented here.