Thursday, March 5, 2015

Discovering the Dunes!

What a fantastic day it was! It was almost like I was in a dream through most of it! 

Alright, let's start right from the beginning. I got ready for the day's exploration at about 9:30 and first we stopped to have breakfast at Arab Udupi. Their Rava Dosa and coffee were pretty good and after having my fill, we set off to our main destination of the day - Al Gharbia. Al Gharbia, as per the Abu Dhabi tourism board website, is "where the sea meets the desert" and has "the biggest dunes this side of the Sahara". All well and good except that the folks here seemed to have no clue about it. But we set off on our exploration trip anyway, keeping faith that the tourism board could do no wrong. 

So we drove and drove and drove. The city and the following arid barren lands soon started to give way to small dunes and I had my first chance meetings with camels in the desert! I have seen camels in the zoo, but that's hardly authentic. At one point, the traffic on the expressway was stopped because an entire herd of black camels had to cross the road! I, like a really annoying tourist, got out and took pictures left, right and centre until the Arab who was guiding the herd asked us to stay put in one place so that we don't get stomped over but that we could carry on taking pictures. It was all very exciting! 

After driving for a couple of hours, we finally got to the township of Al Gharbia and then we had no clue as to where to go next. So my friend went into the municipal corporation office and asked them about the best places in the area for a shoot. As luck would have it, he could get hold of the "Head of City Appearance" for Al Gharbia who gave directions for the best desert - it was another 80kms away! He also clarified that there is no literal "desert meeting sea" and that the sea is in a totally different direction - so we figured that the usage was probably for the area as a whole (apparently Al Gharbia constitutes 51% of total UAE's mass)... that on one side of the region there is sea and the other end has a desert. But now that we were here, we wanted to check out the desert. 

So we determinedly drove ahead. And then it happened. 

The landscape suddenly changed and gave way for desert - not the little sand dunes that we had been seeing the whole while but humongous ones that kept hitting at us at every turn on the road. All around it was just sand and sand and dunes and dunes and I was mesmerized. In fact, all of us were mesmerized - even the two guys who were with me and who had spent about decade in the area. They said this is the biggest desert they have seen! 

Just when we were staring with open mouthed amazement at what surrounded us, we saw a camel farm on the side with several camels in it. So we stopped over for some photo opportunity. And what greeted us? The sight of an hour old baby camel! Yes, it was lying at its mother's feet and getting licked by her. The mother had the smug expression of a job well done and it was such a beautiful visual! One of the caretakers (from Baluchistan), got us to move close to the mom and baby. He then helped the baby to stand up and suckle on its mother. I couldn't stop being amazed at the wonderment of it all! 

Afterwards, we took a LOT of pictures with all the camels and ten caretakers offered us the freshest camel milk possible! He brought it in a huge bowl, right from a camel's udders (not the one who just had the baby, by the way) - it was frothy, warm and thick and I helped myself to a glass of it together with some dates. It felt so perfect. 

After saying goodbye to them, we set off further into the desert and saw more sand, more dunes, no people. One of the things I loved was that even though we were out there in the afternoon sun, it was still so cool and breezy! The weather this time of the time is so perfect! Another thing I loved was how you can see the sand fly over the roads in little golden clouds with each gush of the wind. It was so beautiful to look at! I was also amazed at how they cut such perfect roads in the middle of such stark, virgin desert!  

We spent a considerable amount of time on the dunes before we set back to Abu Dhabi. We realized that one of us had had lunch, so we stopped at one of the petrol stations and grabbed a bite. 

The drive back was long and quiet. I guess we were all rather taken about by the raw majestic beauty of the desert that we had the good fortune of seeing and we mulled over them over and over again. As we drove, the sun set on one side and the moon rose on the other. In a short while, it was pitch dark all around, except of the illumination from the full moon. There were no street lights and hardly any cars on the road. It was wonderful, peaceful. 

Once we got back to Abu Dhabi, we went straight to the Fish Market. Yup. Total change in scenery, that. They have this routine of buying fresh fish, getting it cleaned and grilled right there and it is supposed to be amazing. I wanted to try that out and sure enough, it was amazing! We got chargrilled prawns and oven baked fish (a grouper i think) and they tasted royal! 

Needless to say, we were pretty dead tired post the adventures of the day. We had driven close to 700kms, but it was truly a day well spent! I feel so inspired to make the film now! 

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