Sand

There’s a lot of sand in the UAE… and you might think that makes for a bland, flat desert. But no, we’re surrounded by many landscapes and UAE sits on the edge of the Rub Al Khali, the Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world.  The Empty Quarter is an almost impassable 250,000 square miles of desolation. It does cover huge oil reserves, tapped by Saudi Arabia and the UAE – before its discovery few outsiders had crossed this desert – now oilfield access roads penetrate.

But the area is not flat. Wind sculpts the sand into curvaceous dunes; crisp, smooth and sensuous, like mountains with their own coats of snow. And like the mountains, sunlight breathes beauty into them, especially early morning sunlight. These shapes are smooth-surfaced though, which seems to give the light a special impact.

At their heart most dunes are crescent shaped here, laying foetal with their backs to the prevailing wind. And the wind prevails. As you walk through the dunes sand is blowing off the top lip; footprints that you made as you struggled up the day before are gone by morning. Even the surface of the dune isn’t even; it’s sculpted into ripples.

Sand that I’ve met before is table-salt-like in its consistency, but here sand is dust. It appears as mist in the wind and goes everywhere, coming into the house and coating the floor, counter tops and more.

Much of the sand in this area is a reddish colour; not PEI or Devon red but a lovely rich orange. Except at dawn – in the early morning light it’s pastel pink colour.

Sultan keeps up

Just like snow, sand offers a playground. Emiratis drive into the desert on the weekend to play; cooking over an open fire and enjoying the clear night sky. The vehicle of choice here is the Toyota Land Cruiser, fitted with big, underinflated, sand tires. Dune-bashing is the favourite desert sport; you drive up the gentlest slope of the dune and propel your vehicle off the top, or drive as far as you can up the steepest slope and just before you stall, turn hard and head down, trying not to roll your vehicle in the process.

Qasr Al Sarab at first light

We had to try it, of course, so we joined a desert safari. Three couples crammed in with our driver Sultan. The young Danish couple sat quietly in the back. Not so with the Italian woman, who sat beside us behind the driver. She screamed with terror all through the trip. Frankly, the bashing wasn’t extreme but her cries of “Mama Mia, Santa Maria; No no no, Sultan!” made it seem that way. So, far from calming her, we encouraged her hysteria. It was fun but no damage sustained – except perhaps to our ears!

And in among the dunes, away from the city, is quiet. For Carol’s birthday we drove more than 2 hours into the desert, almost to the Saudi Arabian border, and stayed at the Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort. It was a wonderful place to relax, watch the stars and see the sand.

Al Ain Dunes in morning light