Puking in the Desert: Dune Bashing in Dubai
Last Updated on April 13, 2024 by Adam Watts
“Don’t book anything your mum won’t like,” was my dad’s only instruction when telling me to arrange some things we should do in Dubai.
Fast forward three months and we’re doing dune bashing in Dubai as a family and my mother is standing outside the 4×4 puking her guts up in the middle of the desert.
I messed up.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Originally the plan was to visit the Burj Khalifa, go to a show, do some shopping, go to the old town souqs, eat some nice meals, catch up as a family. Have a very standard, safe, clean and comfortable trip to Dubai.
But we’re efficient. We did all the safe, clean and comfortable stuff in the first few days, and we still had a whole day to kill.
“Day trip to Abu Dhabi? It’s 9 hours full day.”
“Do you have anything shorter?” my dad asked, like I’m a travel agent.
“Dubai Harbour Super Yacht Experience?”
“Too fancy, who do you think we are?”
“Museum of the Future?”
“Could be good,” he said, in the way that could equally mean “that sounds amazing and I’d love to do it” or “sounds really boring and it’ll be dreadful” but ultimately doesn’t express any kind of opinion. Anything “could be good”. It “could be good” to win the lottery. It “could be good” to eat Pizza Hut every day for a year. (To be clear, I’m 100% guilty of this myself also.)
“Sorry, Museum of the Future sold out. Jet ski tour?”
“Absolutely not.” (Wow, clear no!)
“Camel ride in the desert?”
“That could be good.”
Pause… I waited for any additional clues. None came. “Ok, I’ll book it. Part of the experience is also drivingupanddownsanddunesreallyfastinajeep ok it’s booked!”
“I’m sorry, what was that last part?”
And so, the next day we were picked up in a 4×4 outside our hotel and driven 45 minutes out of the city and into a giant empty landscape of scrubland which eventually unfurled into full-on desert and sand dunes. We pulled into base camp.
There was a guy with a probably-very-mistreated falcon, ready to put the bird on your arm – or your head if you want to be “zany” – for a photo op, and a tip.
Out the back of the waiting room (free coffee and tea and soft drinks) was a bunch of people riding ATVs around a dirt track with lots of hills and sharp turns.
“Do you want to do that?” my dad asked my mum.
“What do you think?”
I shuffled away, knowing what was coming later in the day. But first, camels.
I don’t know how well the camels are treated on the Viator tour we did, so please try and do your research and only choose reputable providers.
The camel ride was very short, maybe ten minutes in total, over one sand dune, stop for a photo op, go back. It’s perfunctory, nothing more. If you’re excited about riding a camel, I’d recommend doing something like an overnight camel trekking and camping experience in Morocco.
For this dune bashing in Dubai camel ride, you’re not missing much if you skip the camel ride completely, as my wife did. (She has a phobia of riding four-legged pack animals after a near-death childhood experience with a pony in the Himalayas, as I found out when we visited Cidatelle Laferrière in Haiti.)
“That was nice, thanks Adam, I’m looking forward to going back to the hotel and having a nice nap.”
“Well, actually there’s one more thing before we go home…”
The real dune bashing experience was about to start. We got back into the car and were told to put on our seatbelts (driving on the highway to get here we weren’t given this instruction).
After pulling out of the parking lot of base camp, we went up a slight incline of a sand dune, and my dad said concernedly to the driver, “This doesn’t look like the way back to the hotel?”
The driver laughed. “No, my friend. No it’s not, hold tight!”
The car was now a washing machine on a spin cycle, and we bounced up and down and around and around as we climbed, swerved, and plummetted up and down and around and around sand dune after sand dune.
I was sitting in the very backseat with my mother. I looked at her guiltily. She was rapidly turning green.
“If you feel sick, look forwards, front window!” said the driver gleefully.
Depending on who in the car you asked, that experience lasted either a few minutes or a few hours, but after one final precariously steep climb up a giant dune, we came to a stop.
It doesn’t look so bad here, mainly because the car isn’t moving and we’re not tumbling around inside it.
“Is it over?” my mother said wearily.
“No, no, just taking a break. Photos! And sand boarding!”
My father, in his 60s, sandboarding in a Dubai desert like he’s been doing it all his life. Not pictured: me, on my face, two feet from where I started.
After my dad had finished showing off and I’d got tired of getting sand in my face, it was time to leave. Back to the hotel. The only problem was we still had to get all the way back to the road, over and around the dunes all over again. My mother wasn’t ready.
She sat in the front, which is much less bumpy and bouncy, but it was no good. She motioned to the driver to pull over. He did. She got out. She threw up into the sand.
I sat stonily in the back, wondering if perhaps the jet ski tour might have been better after all.
But in the end, we all made it back alive, safe and sound, and although my mum I’m sure would say she wished she hadn’t done it, I know she’s gleefully told everyone she knows that she went dune bashing in Dubai.
Which is really the point of this whole website. As long as you don’t actually, you know, die, whatever “bad” experience you have makes for a great story and a fun memory you’ll keep forever. I’m just glad that she beat us all to it; I know I was only a few more spins of the washing machine away from spewing up my breakfast too, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone.
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