Onward to the Golden Dunes...

On the whole, tend to be very hot and not support much human civilization. This means that traveling out to the desert (in any country) is a time-consuming and very hot endeavor.
We must suffer for our fun in the sun (and sand)! Our trip out the Arabian Desert is no different. It was incredibly incredibly hot!! It was between 110-120 degrees the whole trip!

We had some adventures along the way though -- which include seeing dead roadkill (big lizards). See the picture:

The first night we stayed in a hotel on the way (the electricity in the hotel went out every 10 minutes and there was absolutely no hot water) Really, on our way there I thought...oh we are really in the middle of nowhere now and this hotel reflects that, but on our way back it seemed like a completely different hotel -- cool and dark inside compared to the terrible heat outside and with clean bathrooms inside! What a difference one night in the desert makes.

Most of the second day was just spent driving out to the desert, with a few intermittent stops at nearly-abandoned cafes and restrooms along the way....eventually we made it to the hot hot desert (right around dinner time actually) and climbing in the sand dunes and setting up camp quickly ensued.

So here are some pictures of the desert -- unlike in Morocco this is not the Sahara, but the Arabian desert -- different country, same principle -- lots of sand, stacked very high. Barren of life. So when the temperature is 120 at sunset, there is no camel riding. Instead we took SUVs and just charged through the sand dunes.

Essentially if you have ever wondered what it would be like to be in a Ford Truck commercial -- I have now experienced it first hand, playing in the desert in vehicles...it's fun, if not a little scary to see SUVs look tiny and insecure compared to the dunes.


Also in the picture below, you can see a pack of black camels! Really cool! I have never seen black camels before.

And there I am...also like a black camel...haha, joking, but seriously, we had to cover up from head to toe because of the sun and the black abaya seemed like the coolest option because it is loose fitting (undecided as to whether that was a good choice or not)

You can see our campsite (real camping...in the middle of nowhere!)