Camel Races and Desert Camping - Doha Musings 2

Conor on Tatooine??? Hmmm

But first .... "A Day at the Races"



Question: What do you do in Doha if you are bored on a weekend afternoon ?
Answer: Go to the camel races!

Its free and its one very unique experience...
You can get right up close and personal with the camels, stand right next to the the starting gate, its totally casual, you need to keep your head up or the camels will run you over... simple :).


AND THEY'RE OFF

The camels have a motorised jockey ! Its the funniest thing! Its smaller than a bread box and is remote controlled. It has an arm connected to a riding crop. The little arm whips around and drives the camel forward. If you click on the photo belwo you can see the gizmo more clearly.
Young boys used to be brought in or kidnapped from Pakistan or Bangladesh to ride the camels. They were essentially treated as slaves(link). Theses electronic devices are a huge improvement.

The Qataris, who own the camels, drive alongside in their SUVs during the race and operate these remotes. As well there are little speakers and they can talk to the camels too.


When you go to the races you can follow the camels around the track in a bus alongside all the SUVs. You can see the SUVs in the behind the camels.

Or if you are really lucky you can get a ride with the camera crew! That's Donna she teaches English at ASD.
The camels run a variety of distances 3,5,7 km races. By mid way almost all the dromedaries are wearing a beard of what looks like shaving cream. Its actually froth from there mouths ... its initially startling to see... then lather disgusting ... in that order. The wining camel gets a pat on the rump as opposed to a kiss on the cheek.

There is no betting on the races in Qatar ... its illegal. So they race their camels every weekend for the glory........... ah yeah right..... anyway, some of these camels go for a hundred thousand riyals... an expensive hobby.
After watching the camels race a couple times we were good to go .... Ya seen one camel race you've seen.....

4 Weekends later we went CAMPING!

That experience was truly remarkable. We discovered some things that we truly were not expecting. Qatar's landscape is flat and dull for the most part ... but there are some very cool places to discover if you are open to adventure.

We headed out early as we needed drive across the country to get to our destination, Zekreet or Bir Zikrit! It took us nearly forty minutes but with gas to spare, we made it.
We drove through Zekreet which is a little bigger than Yahk B.C. but not by much. Up the peninsula towards the Hawar Islands. The road was nothing more than a dirt track, which was there one moment and gone the next.

There are no real camp sites per say you just find a stretch of beach and plop yourself down. We found a nice little bay an we pitched our tents.
Then we went exploring ....
Its interesting what you can discover when you're not really looking for anything in particular... you start seeing things that you might accidently drive right by.


These mushroom shaped limestone mesas are worn down by wind and are smooth, dusty and slippery.Not far from this spot we found and old TV set used for a show about bedoin arabs. I though it reminded my of where Sandpeople lived in Stars Wars but I think that place is in Tunesia.




We explored these little structures which turned out to be nothing more than shells, but they were still pretty interesting!
We dove up out of this little valley and found another TV / Movie set ... Hollywood Mid East. ... Go figure! Who woulda known???

It looks cool! ..... Its all fake :( real buildings ... real empty.
But the camping was nice and peaceful:). The water was warm but still refreshing.


Incredibly challenging to have camp fire. There was some dry seaweed to burnand a few dried prickly shrubs, but after constantly feeding our tiny little blaze we gave up and played cards ;)

We loved our new tents, with no fly you could lie down in tent and see the stars over head...
Magic.

We are going to try and go back before it gets too hot ... Today was 33C , winter is almost over ... It's sad it has been so beautiful for so long! In month and a half we will be indoors again!

Doha Musings 1

DUSTSTORM!


Well I'm getting tired of my long winded rambles so I thought maybe some shorter punchier insights ...

We had a dust storm today, our first one. It was 25 C all day but the visibility was down to 200 m maybe. We, sorry I, left a couple of windows open, one of them just above our bed. Everything is covered in this thin layer of dust. I am sure the Philipino cleaning ladies are cursing all over Doha... Its like after cooking and there is flour on the counter, its there but you have to look to see it.

With all the dust in the air there was a lot of static electrivcity build up. We had an impressive lightning show last night. Multiple lightning flashes made sleeping from 11pm to about midnight a bit of a challenge.

We recently took 120 kids to the UAE and Oman for a week without walls.
Dubai International airport.

In BC we would go for 2-3 days to a forestry camp. The setting was very different but the experience was completely the same. Kids were homesick and some were just glad to be away with their friends. Its funny how kids are pretty much the same everywhere.



We did a wall climbing activity 3 stories high that got the better of a few kids but there were many successes! We snorkled, and that was a lot of fun, many cool fish! It was fun, beautiful and very rugged stark terrain. The only trees to speak of were acia trees which reach out and grab you. They are very prickly, big thorns. The mountain biking was cool, beautiful scenery!

We visited one of the oldest Mosques in the Middle East
The mosque was very small and plain
My group of kids outside the mosque. I had to keep track of all of there passports. In my little group there were 9 different nation passports, I had 14 kids in all.
The littte battlement at the top of the hill was one of two that helped prevent slave traders from killing the men and taking the women and children.

Kayaking in the Arabian Sea! And raft building

Mountain Biking

We went mountain biking and stopped atop this dam. Not a drop of water to be seen for kilometers but apparently that is a different case during flash floods. It also helps the ground recharge their aquifers as well water is very important in the region.
GPS orienteering, I thought this was a great activity, the kids thought it was too much like school work.

Many kids over came a fear of heights, so did a couple of teachers, not me of course....
Snorkeling - we saw Nemo again, man that little guy gets around... It was a little chilly that day

Our last night, a fire and a talent show

The muscle! Where's the beef?! My homies - we were the party-poopers!! For the kids our mantra was ..." It's past 7:30 Get to bed!"

Our last morning bfore our flight we had a boat cruise!

The activity leaders from UAE.
Oman by the Sea
The end..;) So much for being brief.