Dunes Baby!

Well, we did it...we drove into, around, on top of, and down the dunes! We went with another couple out to experience the dunes. I am not sure how to describe it...for those of you who are thrill seekers...WOW!!! You would have a blast here. For those of you who are a little on the scaredy cat side...you would have died!

First, you get as far as paved road will take you, then you let a bunch of air out of your tires. Then off you go. If you can, you follow someone else's path and hope that they knew what they were doing! You would always want to take more than one vehicle in the event that you get stuck and need to be towed out...etc (plus better to send someone down a dune before you! lol)! We drove on flat bumpy sand for a while, much like driving on dirt with lots of pot holes! Then there are patches of sand dunes where you slip and slide until you can get to hard "road" again. Driving through the sand is a lot like fish tailing in the snow. (just not too sure if you have control of the car or not!) You can just drive and drive, it is amazing, dunes emerging all around you.

Of course we had to go up a dune and come down. So you carefully climb up the dune. You get to the top and then let someone else go first! It is a lot like going on a roller coaster. You keep nudging your car over the edge of the dune until you get over and start sliding down. You do not accelerate and if you are new like us, you can brake. You just keep sliding until you reach the bottom and level off. Needless to say, I was scared to death! All Michael kept saying was "Jimmy would love this!!!" (We'd be more than happy to pass along your resume Jimmy!!!) It really was a lot of fun. We were very conservative duners. There are some people out there doing some crazy stuff!

We met up with another group of duners who were actually all teachers! I knew it, you can just tell a group of teachers...friendly, funny, considerate, did I mention friendly!!! We hung out with them for a while and then we all went back out into the dunes. It was a lot of fun, plus I made another connection at the school!

We did stop and take a break at the Inland Sea. It is here that you can look across and see Saudi Arabia! WOW!!! On the Qatar side, there are white sand dunes/beaches and just across the Inland Sea are cliffs lining the Saudi edge! (We are pretty sure that you would not want to just swim over to Saudi!!!) We actually saw dolphins swimming in the water! Amazing!


One sight we did not think we would see is grass, shrubs and flowers growing in the desert! They have had an extremely cool and wet winter here and there is actually growth in the desert. They say give it another month or two and should be all dead! lol




Enjoy the pictures. The Hummer belongs to the couple we drove out with! Aftewards, we had dinner at Chilis!!!