Dune Bashing

Dune-Bashing in the U.A.E.

"It's normal, it's normal," mutters Josef Abdul, our dune-bashing driver, as he gets out of the Land Cruiser to assess the damage. We are straddling a dune, sand trailing down at precipitous angles to the left and the right of us, and we are stuck.

"Don't worry. I will call my friends to pull us out. This is normal," he emphasizes. "We will be free shortly to continue on."

Until this momentary hang-up on one the dunes, we’d spent the last half hour sliding and gunning up and down 45-degree angles and popping up over dune precipices absolutely blindly only to roll at break-neck speeds down the other side. It had been a bone-jarring, breath-stealing experience. We’d had no idea what we were getting ourselves into on this desert safari trip. I’d imagined something more along the lines of a tame camel ride to an oasis, followed by a delectable Middle Eastern repast. This was not turning out the way I had planned.

"How do you all not hit each other? " I ask our driver nervously, as I watch another Land Cruiser pop over the dune 20 yards to my left. I am not so sure I want to continue on shortly. Sam's eyes are closed and Ted looks a bit green around the gills.

"We drive on assigned routes. Every dune has a name and we know all of them. I have been doing this for 10 years. Trust me," replies Abdul, as he starts punching rescue numbers into his cell phone.

Earlier in the day, the three of us had signed up for one of the fabled desert safari trips in the UAE. Under the banner of adventure tourism, the desert safaris of the last 10 years cater mainly to tourists, and take place all over the Rub’ al Khali Desert, otherwise known as the Empty Quarter, a huge expanse that covers much of this geographic region. The tours are generally a six-hour, $50 per person deal, including dune bashing, sand boarding, a trip to a camel farm, a ride on a camel, and a barbeque dinner, complete with local cuisine, sheesha smoking and henna painting. Our driver works for RAK events, and adventure outfit operating out of Ras Al Khaimah, the northern most Emirate, where I have chosen to live for the next 2 years.

I have recently moved to the UAE to teach at Ras Al Khaimah American School, the first American school in this Emirate. Uprooted from our home on the western slope of Colorado, my son Sam is also with me on this adventure. My brother and his partner (who wisely decided not to join us tonight) have flown over to visit us for a few days, a getaway from their home in New Delhi, India. My brother has just received a job offer for the DCM post at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. He is about to ascend to a very important position in the international world, and I am going to feel pretty guilty if he doesn’t live through this experience… if we flip over and roll sideways down two hundred feet of dune. Not to mention Sam, who has his whole life in front of him.

Earlier in the evening, we'd stopped off the highway to let air out of the tires in preparation for this experience. Abdul had cautioned us to stay away from all food and beverages, except the water that he
would provide for us on the dunes. Now I knew why. My stomach churns in the aftermath of the earlier lurching and spinning we’d been through.

Right now our desert safari is stalled out because Abdul, though a deft and confident driver, has bottomed out on a dune. He asks us to exit the car, and I walk to the end of the dune, enjoying the stillness and wide desert views below us. Soon help arrives in the form of a turban-clad driver in a kandora, who hooks a piece of 50 foot nylon webbing to both cars and hauls us out. We are on our way again.

It seems that all dune drivers have signature dune driving music. Abdul plugs in his MP3 player, and cranks up a tune that was popular in 1984. Performed by Modern Talking, a German pop band, the lyrics boom out into the car. "You're no good, can't you see, brother Louis, Louis Louis? I'm in love, can't you see, brother Louis, Louis, Louis!" What on God's green earth was this 20-something kid doing with this 25-year-old Euro trash pop?

Listening to it, I am instantly transported back to Spain, during my junior year of college, when I’d studied in Madrid for a semester. This jingle played constantly at that time. In my mind's eye, I can almost see Madrid's boisterous streets, and taste the Cordero Negro champagne we'd drunk while dancing in Mediterranean-themed clubs. This was also the year my father died unexpectedly. And in just a few short months, I would be meeting a Moroccan, a man who was to become one of the great romantic interests of my life. Who knew where he was now? Yet I am, in part, here in the Middle East because of that long ago liaison, which started in me an appreciation for the Arab culture.

After a few initial show-off turns and spins, Abdul suddenly points the car downhill, and at breakneck speed, we float down an endless dune. "Brother Louis, Louis, Louis," pounds in my ears. I turn and look over my shoulder at Sam. His eyes are screwed shut. Then I look back at Ted. He just shakes his head at me. What have we gotten ourselves into this time? The brochure had looked innocuous enough.

"Please sir," I croak to the young driver. "Could you go a little more slowly, please?"

"Just relax," he counsels. And I do. In this minute, I open my eyes, force myself to unclench my hands from around my shoulder harness, and try to enjoy it. I am afraid of heights, but I tell myself this driver is experienced. And suddenly, it is sort of fun, if only a little bit. Sam crows from the back seat. It feels like we are flying over the sand, catching air, gliding and turning and swirling. The sun is setting over the desert. I decide we might survive after all.

An hour later, while seated on cushions in the open air, sipping Coronas and eating a sumptuous meal of savory daal bat lentils over rice, grilled vegetables and khandahar red curry spiced lamb and chicken, we talk to our neighbors at the adjoining table. They are two women who hail from Miami.

"Oh, no way!" says the short, pretty one. "We were told absolutely, under no conditions, were we to go on the dune pashing part of the safari. People throw up and hyperventilate and stuff all the time. You guys did that?"

We had, and we'd lived to tell the tale. A moment from it remains minute frozen in time, where we are all in that car, Abdul, Sam, his mother and uncle, three of the four mouths making perfect O's of fear and delight, as Modern Talking tells us, "Life is Life, come on stand up and fight!" The desert floats below and the sun melts into the horizon in sandy waves of orange heat.

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