Camping in Liwa Desert

We had a blast camping in the Desert! The kids had a ball and played SO HARD the entire time…. We even had to go around looking for Will b/c he would be playing quietly with trucks and shovels in the sand.  Ahhh.. no fussing, whining, and very little crying. VICTORY! We had the most AMAZING views that I cannot even begin to describe the massive vastness of the desert dunes.. they were enormous, majestic and we were totally awestruck.  It was even cooler that we just drove up and down and all around them.  The guide, Amir, instructed us to let out air from our tires – they looked like they were 1/2 flat and we were able to successfully drive on the sand.  We did get stuck a couple of times (a couple of scary times I might add!!).  The dunes that we drove up and down were so STEEP.  Even Charles was like, no way, we aren’t doing that are we?!  Oh yes we did.  Carseats in the back and all. ha.! The kids loved it and were laughing all the way, especially Will.   It was awesome, it truly was!  It took 2 hours from Abu Dhabi to get to Liwa and then we drove for another hour and forty five minutes up and down the dunes. The views were insane.

We finally let the kids out and they went nuts.. it was like the most gigantic sandbox in the world.

this looks fake doesn’t it? it was unreal, I tell ya.

Me and the chil’ren…
The weather was cool and breezy, soon after we got there we were actually cold put on layers a little at a time.

No, we weren’t at a camp ground or even staying in a camper, this was rustic, y’all!  We literally drove around and around until we found the perfect spot, according to Amir.  He wanted us in a bowl surrounded by dunes.  There were so many that we went to, but most of them had gravel at the bottom, which wouldn’t be too comfortable to sleep on… no air mattresses, just sleeping bags on the ground.  I giggled when I saw the sizes of the tent.  We (All four of us) slept there – I wondered if Charles would even fit. LOL.

The kids loved climbing up the dunes and sliding down.  This was HARD – like burn-your-quads-kinda-hard.. they went up and down, up and down.. too many times to count. Like I said, they LOVED it!

^^showing the steepness^^

How can anyone not believe in God?!  this beauty was clearly His Creation~!

My man, on top of the world.

The wind! ah! my hair was crazy.. where did my cute hat go!?


do you see the beautiful red layer of sand covering it all.. not sure why that was, but it was really pretty

sun was setting^^^

the ridge on the top of our dune.. look at picture below this was how high we were up… it sure was fun to go down!

campfire time.. I love that smell! We didn’t have any kind of grill or Coleman stove even.. literally built a fire, skewered meat, held it over the fire to cook it, then ate.  we also made s’mores which the family that was with us had never heard of before.  He is Australian and she is from the Philippines.

Snug as a bug in a rug!  He was too funny..  he got so tired (we just let them play until they dropped – didn’t change them into PJ’s or anything.. we were camping y’all!) anyway.. back to the story.. he wanted his “BE BE” which is his lovey.. Charles and I agreed it wasn’t to go into the sand since there are holes in it and it would just be nasty.. so we let him sit in the car with it from time to time (we didn’t want him in and out of the tent tracking in the sand).  He ended up falling asleep in the car with his lovey!
We just moved him over to the tent… he looked so cute snuggled up.

The kids woke up at 6:00 a.m. we were exhausted from the sleeping on the ground thing… but got up and got going.

Berries, Banana’s and Nutragrain Bars for breakfast.

he adores a blackberry

looking rough the next morning, but I’m keeping it ‘real’ here.

Audrey exploring the desert.. she enjoyed this so much.. On our way home, she said, “Mama and Daddy, this was the funnest day EVER!!!! I LOVE camping in the desert, I want to do it EVERYDAY!”

Is this what you’d call an Oasis?? Camels in the front and gorgeous palms in the back.. there were NO trees other than this in the entire desert.


some more last minute walks on the dunes.. I wanted to show you the patterns made in the sand from the wind.. it looked like veins in the ground.

Audrey playing with Alyson.  The couple that invited us had a daughter that was only one month younger than Audrey and a son, who was 6 months younger than Will.  They played really well together

Time to Leave.. headed home


This is how I was taking pictures out of the window – I thought this would give you a good visual. Also, notice the Arabic written on the side mirror – I BET it says, objects in mirror are closer than they appear?? :)  just taking a wild guess.

We weren’t in the car for 5 minutes (it was around 9 a.m. ish) and Mr. Will was conked out.  Yes, that is a bag of pringles next to him. We were camping.. whatever.   Over the dunes and through the sand… we came across a CAMEL FARM!!! I was so excited!  They breed them there for racing… these camels are worth millions of Dirhams (so we were told)
 
Check out the other babies behind me.. the white one was 9 days old


I told Audrey that is what her teeth will look like if she doesn’t brush them!

these three seemed to be friends.

there were so many babies!! I caught this one nursing.^^

Me and the Camel Farmer^^

hellooo handsome!

*^^this baby was only 3 days old. I was blown away – THREE days old?!

^more pictures of the newborn camel. They are born with the ability to walk… isn’t that cool?!

Driving down a desert road.. yep, a crew of camels just hanging out on the side of the road.

As you can see, the experience was unreal.  I never would have guessed I would have done this before.  Stepping out of my comfort zone was really fun.  I told Charles that if someone would have asked us to go camping in Texas, in a tent, with no running water, no electricity, no bathrooms.. with 2 kids – I would have said NO WAY… it was loads of fun, the kids couldn’t have been better and we made memories that will last a lifetime.. well Charles and I did – the kids won’t remember- BUT, how cool will it be when they study the desert in school, we can give them pictures to prove that they have not only been there, but they camped out in tents between the sand dunes. wow.