As the weather cools down, outdoor activities become more and more enticing. Given how much Jordan and I love camping and hiking back home, we were eager to figure out how to make that happen here in the UAE.
We first tried searching about camping on Google. We found many results but some required 4-wheel drive to get to (not exactly something our little Figo is capable of) and the ones our car could make it to came with warnings from folks that had been there that the areas were full of trash and that you are surrounded by people making noise into the wee hours of the night. We begun to feel discouraged.
In a last ditch effort to make camping happen, Jordan posted an inquiry on a UAE camping page on facebook about where we should go. He ended up receiving a private message from a woman who was organizing a camping group through the expat website, InterNations. We accepted her invite and drove to the Carrefour to buy some cheap camping gear (altogether our tent, mattress, and chairs cost about $70 total).
Driving in Ras al Khaimah
Friday morning came around and we got up, packed our stuff in the car, and headed towards Ras al Khaimah. Our spot would be at the Saraya Island beach. The drive to Ras al Khaimah from Al Ain is about 2 and a half hours. That is a far drive for the UAE, but nothing to Wyomingites.
After a stop for lunch at an Indian restaurant, we drove to the meeting spot. We drove over a bridge that led to a military base and through an opening in the fence. The whole thing felt a little sketchy, but we trusted the InterNations group and drove ahead. Our path brought us to a raised parking lot and an empty beach. We were the first ones there.
I spy trash on the beach behind me
Unfortunately, the blog posts and google reviews we read were correct — there was trash everywhere. Despite there being 4 large trash cans around the perimeter of the lot, water bottles littered the ground around us. We could see from where we stood that the beach was no better. Thankfully, we knew ahead of time that this would probably be the case, and we brought lots of garbage bags to clear some of the debris. We got right to work picking up in a section of the beach so we could have a place for our chairs to sunbathe and swim until our group arrived. We watched as other beach goers raced their SUVs up and down the beach and did donuts on ATVs.
Another positive was that despite the best efforts of humanity, the beach was still a beautiful place. The water was still a sparking turquoise, and behind us was a magnificent view of the Hajar mountain range. We saw dozens of starfish on our swim, and watched a few people ride horseback along the beach.
Slowly but surely, people from the InterNations group began to trickle in. We felt a little weird bringing our chairs over to sit with them, as we weren’t technically InterNations members and didn’t really know the deal with these events, but members of the group convinced us otherwise and had us gather around the fire they were building.
The diverse group had people from Russia, India, Tunisia, Lebanon, Czech Republic, Pakistan, and more. Predictably, everyone struggled with my name (non-Americans have a hard time with such an American name) and understood Jordan’s immediately (it helps having the same name as a nearby country). The group was quite welcoming and offered us delicious food and drinks. We had great conversations about life in the UAE and danced to music. The music was an interesting mix of Russian songs, Arabic songs, American songs, and even a few Latin songs.
By 10 PM, Jordan and I were exhausted and went to bed while the party marched along. We were able to fall right asleep despite the music and the sounds of people racing on the beach because we were so tired. This did not stop Jordan, however, from waking up at 4 AM when people got their second winds and started up their SUVs and ATVs again. I was able to sleep through that, but not the cacophony of sound just before 5 AM, when we could hear every call to prayer in the city of Ras al Khaimah echo all at once, each one just off from the others so that it almost sounded like it was being sung in a round. At about 6 AM we gave up on getting back to sleep and emerged from our tent to share some karak tea with our fellow campers.
When we got up, only two others from our group were up. They stoked the campfire to make breakfast and asked us if we would mind if they put on some music. The said it would be “morning Arabic music.” We laughed and said we wouldn’t mind at all. More campers in our group started to wake up and join us as we sat on the beach, watching the sun rise from behind the Hajar mountains on a gorgeous morning.
Once the sun got enough above the rocky peaks, the weather started heating up substantially. We packed up our stuff quickly, attempting to get the sand out and off of our gear and eventually giving up on the fruitless endeavor. One of our new friends helps us pack our things into his SUV so he could drive us to our car. We weren’t terribly far from where we parked, but the heat was already making me sweat buckets, so we welcomed the help.
Despite the copious amounts of garbage, and the amount of noise throughout the night (just as we had been previously warned), we weren’t scared off at all from camping. It was totally worth it! It helped coming prepared to clean, and it helped that we met some really great people. When we got home we immediately bought a membership to InterNations so we could join more events in the future. My biggest disappointment from the weekend, to be honest, was that I didn’t take more pictures.
