Back Blip - Dune Buggying

We went out to the desert to go dune buggying - first they bashed a few dunes with us in the back of a 4 x 4 - I have no idea how we didn't roll, and also how we could all not feel even remotely sick when a short trip on a small plane has me sweating and heaving like mad. 

John paired with Sarah, and I paired with David  - despite the faff we had gone through to get international driving licences, nobody even checked we had any sort of driving licence. I let David drive first and the years of Mario Kart really paid off - he was brilliant. In fact, once I had realised he wasn't going to roll it I decided not to drive at all. It was pretty hairy driving across the dunes at improbable angles, but the scenery was magnificent, rolling dunes, bright blue sky and herds of passing camels. At one point John and Sarah got stuck so we had to stop to wait for them - it was around 8am and as soon as we stopped I thought we would expire from the heat. You wouldn't last long out there without water. What a brilliant experience it was. 

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a service station next to the desert and I emptied the sand from my shoe onto the pavement - immediately someone came and swept it up - that's very Dubai, 10 feet from a desert and no sand allowed!

I thought I had a lovely golden tan but it turned out that I had been sandblasted...

We returned to the water park of course, and spent the afternoon floating around the lazy river, people watching, and wondering at how normal it felt to be bobbing around on a man-made river on a mad-made island amiably bumping into almost naked strangers from all 4 corners of the world all laughing and having a fabulous time. Whoever designed it was a genius. 

The extra is a view from the hotel of downtown Dubai through the haze.