Camping with Friends

We love camping but we're not the 'leaders in camping' types, really. We love tagging along and going with the flow (whatever that might look like) and we like being part of larger groups of friends who decide, for one reason or another, to venture into the desert to spend the night or the weekend. And so it was with this outing. We linked up with our neighborhood friends and, taking advantage of the "stay in the UAE" spring break we headed out to Al Bateah, a location that was new for us. It was quite different from the camping in Wadi Shawka that we had gone to earlier. More sand dunes to deal with. More space to settle in and more dune climbing. 

We got there in the late afternoon and had to make some last minute adjustments due to other groups having already staked a claim in other parts of the area. But we found a nice flat area, easy to access but sitting that foot of some rather large sand dunes... which attracted the kids nearly immediately. Within minutes, and as the adults started setting up their tents, the kids were already out of site, having climbed up the nearest dune. Mommy followed them to get some photos as the rest of the group quickly set up camp and followed suit, in time for sunset. It wasn't until we got to the top that we realized that the dunes just kept on going.... and the kids had gone with them!  Playing, running up and down. Giggling away. 

So we took photos of them, of each other, or the photographers taking pictures of other photographers taking pictures of the sunset. Later, as darkness arrived, we went back down for dinner, for songs and chats and stories... and to discover little friends with pointy tails rummaging around. Our first direct exposure to scorpions!  We were apprehensive at first but equally as interested in getting to know them. All in all we found four of them moving around, some with more energy than others, before calling it a night and hoping that one of them found their way inside any tents. By the next morning one of our scorpion friends was roaming around but the rest had returned to their underground dens. 

With the sun, and the heat, steadily climbing we packed things up and get the cars ready. But there was just enough time for one more thing...