Sleeping under the stars in the Desert

So after the dune bashing we are on our way to more adventures, like the camel riding, having our hands painted with henna, smoking a sheesha (water pipe) eating an Arabic BBQ, which was so delicious! Inspired me to cook more at home from this region... watching a belly dancer and another fabulous male dancer who carried layers of skirts and kept turning around and around with those heavy fabrics, just amazing to see! He even had lights in them!!

And then of course the part we all looked so much forward to, the sleeping at the camp, staying there overnight, in an open hut, just us and a few guards/cooks who took care of us, some camels and a few sheep we heard in the morning, although we never saw them, we clearly heard them :-)

So we picked this beauty to be our riding buddy... isn't he cute?



The lines of people wanting to have a camel ride was quite long, so Dirk and me decided not to go on, but the girls certainly did!





Here they go on the second camel!



This is our camp, where we are having the BBQ, belly dancing, henna painting, sheesha pipe and later sleeping.... Do you see on the right hand side, there are 2 roofs a bit higher? That is where we sleep, there were 2 open rooms, just a roof and no walls on the side on the second floor, so no scorpions or other creepy animals... We and 1 other couple stayed overnight, so much fun!



Look at these fabulous designs on our hands.. here Jasmine



Juliet's hand



The girls with the henna lady...



and me. The black thick ink falls off and then the brown ink stays for at least 10 days on your skin.



The belly dancer who was actually a Russian lady :-)



This male dancer, he was really amazing!





The girls are excited to sleep under the stars and totally outdoors! The mattress and pillows are filled with desert sand, hard as a rock, so I didn't sleep that much...



5:15 am and the sun is getting up as we... sheep are heard around the camp, but I don't see them. Birds are flying everywhere around us, hoping to steel some of our breakfast...



The view of the camp in the morning... we are off back to our hotel again. This was so much fun!!



Our next destination is ABU DABI!!

What a beautiful week this is!!
Mireille