how to amuse yourself in the desert?

Drive around. Whether on the wide open sand flats just outside of town where I like to run or over the sand dunes an hour to the south that I visited on Saturday, driving SUVs in the sand seems to be the primary leisure activity in this bleak country. A group of my friends from work left from the Cornell parking lot around 2:00 Saturday afternoon, and after only a few minutes the sheen of Doha was scoured away by the harsh landscape of a country that bleeds natural gas.
After driving for an hour or so across an unchanging landscape punctuated by yet more piles of rubble ("yay! new rubble!") we arrived at the point where the tarmac ends and the road becomes a well-beaten track into the dunes. The experience of riding in an SUV piloted by a professional dune-driver is somewhat akin to riding a controlled but unpredictable rollercoaster. The goal, of course, is to get the tourists to squeal without rolling the vehicle over. We were happy to provide the obligatory but genuinely involuntary squeals.
Despite my general disdain for motorized amusement of this sort (a la jet skis, 4-wheelers, and the like) it was pretty damn fun. Still, my father's voice echoed in my head as I gazed out at the dunes criss-crossed with tire tracks: "I wonder what this does to the desert ecology?" Thanks for always ruining my fun, dad.

Anyhow, after 45 minutes or so the entertainment shifted from thrill-seeking to sight-seeing as we approached the famed Inland Sea that separates Qatar from Saudi Arabia. As we rolled up our pant legs and wiggled our toes in the briny water, we gazed across the wee inlet on the other side of which I, as a woman, would not be allowed to drive a car. As we watched the light changing on the beautiful rock formations rising from the beach across the water, someone from the group sighed, "Awww. Saudi has topography. No fair."
As we splashed in the shallows, we amused ourselves by taking pictures of each other in the gorgeous evening light and picking out collections of pretty shells. This latter activity became even more diverting when we realized that many of the shells still had very vivacious inhabitants.

The trip was capped off with a stop at a faux Bedouin camp set up by the tour company complete with icy soda pop and piles of dates. It actually was pretty lovely, and a nice place to sit and just watch the light fade and as night crept over the desert.It is weird how the wind changes here. I have noticed it especially in the evening hours on the beach. One minute the breeze will be hot and dry, turning my skin to parchment, but within minutes my hair is curling and a light sheen of moisture forms on the soft hair of my forearms and the wind shifts direction to blow in from the ocean and the air becomes thick and heavy. As a result, twilight comes sooner than you would expect and stars are harder to see, due only to the thickness of the atmosphere and the moisture in the air. But the long shadows cast across the salt flats by the looming dunes left me awestruck, and more than made up for the paltry smattering of stars in the desert sky.

And so, another entry comes to a close. Next weekend is the annual Dunestock festival (no, I'm not kidding) at the "singing sand dunes" about 40 km to the west. I already have a subject for the next post. Hope you are all well and that spring is pushing up the crocuses wherever you are.

Intrepidly Yours,
Emelie