Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

The adventures of a blonde and a very old car

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“Aaaahhhh, croissants, fresh coffee and real napkins. I could get used to this” Mrs J sighed with pleasure. “Well, don’t!” I replied, while frantically tapping on my phone, trying to find a supposedly reliable mechanic.


The Pajero was not only still stuck in 3rd gear, but now also needed a new oil pump. It wasn’t moving anywhere, any time soon. Nor were we. As nice as a break was in a lovely hotel with fluffy bath towels and room service, it wasn’t what we had come to Salalah for.


“So, where are you guys heading?” A nice chap asked while piling his plate full of pancakes at the breakfast buffet. If he had hoped for small-talk he had met the wrong person on the wrong day. He got the whole story from us leaving Muscat, to the blown oil pump. He listened sympathetically while his pancakes grew cold. “So, if you are stuck for a couple of days, why don’t you join us for a trip into The Empty Quarter? You’re gonna love it”.


“But isn’t the desert rather... well, empty..? Mrs J intervened while sending longingly looks in the direction of the sun loungers by the swimming pool. Clearly she wasn’t loving it.


Regardless, we soon found ourselves squashed into an enormous American truck next to Mohamed, who proudly told us that this too was his first drive into the desert. Even though we were driving in a group with 10 other vehicles, this little piece of information didn’t exactly fill us with confidence. “But you do know how to drive in sand, right?” I asked nervously. “Naaa, but it can’t be that difficult”.


Oh, how wrong he was.


The Empty Quarter, or Rub Al Khali as is its Arabic name, a vast desert area stretching up to the UAE and bordering Saudi Arabia and Yemen, covering some 650,000 km2; the object of long tales and short stories and the dream of arm chair travellers and real adventurers alike. And here we were, two fat ladies in our late 50s, amongst the serious drivers, feeling a little bit like fish out of water. Soon though, the golden sand dunes met us, and all we could think of was how we would ever be able to explain the beauty of the endless sand in 50 shades of golden, to anyone who had never been to the desert.


Mohammed revved the truck to get it through a patch of deep soft sand, lost control and continued sideways down the dune. I don’t actually think I, in our 40 years of friendship, had ever heard Mrs J scream. For the first time I realised just how loud she could be. During our 4 days of driving through the desert, it wouldn’t be the last time. Far from it.


The desert was home to, what was said to be, the tallest sand dune in the Arab world. Ramlat Al Jadilah, so beautiful that it was generally referred to as ‘she’. We felt a lot closer to Heaven sitting on top of the dune (having had to crawl on all four the last bit, after Mohammed’s truck got stuck) having our faces exfoliated and sand blasted by the superfine sand blowing across the ridge. We looked around and saw nothing but sand. We checked our phones, no network. We felt very, very small and insignificant.


The sun was setting as we reached our camp, and out of nowhere two local bedouins turned up for a cup of tea. They seemed entirely unimpressed by our star-struck stories of conquering the tallest sand dune. Our illusions were shattered when they announced that there was in fact a dune even taller. When asked to show us where this illusive dune was, they were very vague and pointed with their chin in a not very helpful direction “Over there”.


We sat in comfortable silence, finished our tea and let the desert grow pitch black, while pondering if our two new bedouin friends had been right. “Why climb a sand dune when you can walk around it”.


Perhaps they were right. Perhaps we were crazy.


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