Trip Journal: Desert Safari in Dubai

Have you read my other Trip Journal entries about Dubai?

I had to take a break from sharing the rest of the trip, but now I’m back to share the details from our desert safari:

We arranged the trip through Arabian Adventures and our guide came right to our friend’s home to pick us up in the car we would be using to traverse to desert. We even tucked away Flat Stanley and Traveling Tracy for the adventure:

I expected some high-powered SOMEthing, but this was it. We climbed inside and drove away from the city and into a nature preserve.

Once we arrived, we got out of the car, played in the sand and had our pictures taken with camels while we waited for the cars to get ready. The drivers let some of the air out of the tires and loaded up drinks.

The sand was much finer than any of us expected. Because it was completely dry, unlike beach sand, it was slippery and not sticky at all.

Once the cars were ready (and lots of photos were snapped) we headed deeper into the desert.

There were a lot of cars and we zig-zagged our way over the many dunes.

At more than one point, I felt as though we could be in a car commercial for 4 wheel drive:

I kept thinking to myself that the cars HAD to have steel cages, as I was convinced that we would roll at one point. But, alas, our driver was very skilled and we didn’t.

As we were going over one dune and almost on our side, my son said “They should have a ride like this!”

“Umm, honey, this is like a ride… but it’s the real thing,” I said.

“No, they should make a ride like this at Disney World,” he countered.

“This is better than Disney World,” my four year old lover-of-princesses said. “This is even better than lunch with the princesses!”

I couldn’t help but gasp. She talks about lunch with the princesses all the time. She even wanted her hair like Jasmine for our trip into the desert! Better than meeting the princesses? WOAH!

My husband and I smiled and the ‘ride’ continued.

We pulled off to watch a beautiful sunset:

And then we continued on to ‘camp’ for camel riding:

Falconry:

and a traditional meal:

There was also a market for purchasing souvenirs and photos (of course!) and belly dancing, which really entertained the kids.

At the end of the night, our guide drove us back out of the preserve, filled the tires back up with air and delivered us back to our friend’s home for a long rest after a full adventure I know we will never forget!