Dune Bashing, Or How I Spent My Friday

by Lucas Marquardt

“Do you like it?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“It’s Punjabi. Punjabi punk rock.”

This is the first exchange I had with our driver yesterday as we set out on our dune-bashing expedition. Whatever was blaring from the radio of his white Toyota Landcruiser didn’t sound much like punk rock to me, but I liked this guy immediately. About my age and with his hair combed straight back, and wearing slightly creepy blue color contacts, he looked like someone who was probably heavily influenced by the style of Miami Vice’s Ricardo Tubbs as a youngster. He seemed like the perfect dune-bashing guide. 

Dune bashing, more lamely called a desert safari, appears to be something of a pastime in Dubai. It works like this: 1) drive an SUV to an area with lots of sand dunes; 2) drive as fast and as recklessly as possible over the dunes. 

That’s it. That’s dune bashing. And no surprise, it’s terrific fun. Yesterday, I called up the folks at Desert Safari Dubai and asked if they had any last-minute openings. It helped that I was flying solo, and they hooked me up with a group going later in the day. They included a Dutch woman and her adult son, as well as an affable Lebanese man in his late 20s, Mohammed, who spoke great English, and his parents, who spoke none at all. For the next five hours, we would be a team.

After picking everyone up–I was first aboard the Landcruiser–we headed southwest out of the city on a three-lane highway. It didn’t take long for Dubai’s skyscrapers to fade into the rearview mirror, and after a few miles of residential housing, much of it under construction, we were in the desert. We drove for 20 more minutes. 

The sun was already lowering when our driver turned off highway. Immediately, a long line of SUVs and mini-buses, all white, came into view. Each one was just parked on the side of the road. Our driver steered us over, joined the long line and said, “This is it. Get out.”

So we got out. He got out, too, and then led us down an embankment to a second SUV (also a white Toyota Landcruiser), which we piled into. We had a new driver now, though he didn’t say a word after chirping, “Seatbelts!” upon us entering. I missed Tubbs. 

The new driver sped up the embankment, found a gap between the parked SUVs, then crossed two lanes of traffic to get to the other side of the road. From there, we plunged down the embankment on that side of the road, and the ride was on. We were now dune bashing. 

The new driver acquitted himself fine. He skillfully sped up steep dunes, cranked the wheel to the right, then let the Landcruiser slide down the other side while fishtailing into a new direction. He carved out the sides of dunes like a skier on fresh powder, and zipped along the ridges of the dunes, the undercarriage bogging down occasionally before ripping free with a lurch. We deftly avoided the low brush, and the camels (domesticated, I’m pretty sure) that jogged away when we came into view. Several times we saw other SUVs a few hundred yards away. 

“How do you know you’re not going to come up over a ridge and slam into someone else?” I thought. 

Everybody in the car was laughing, including the new driver. After about 10 minutes, though, I became aware of the silence from the backseat. I turned around. Mohammed had a worried look on his face. I looked over at his mother. She was sweating but pale, and had her head cranked toward her open window. Dune sickness. 

“Maybe we take a break?” said Mohammed. Yeah, that might be a good idea, we agreed. 

We drove back across the road and into the desert a quarter mile, where a camp of sorts was set up to host dinner. There were five or six thatch or reed buildings that came together to form a large square between them. In the center of the square was a low stage, surrounded by several dozen low tables with sitting pillows. The way it works, I gather, is that all the individual tour operators agree to meet here, and a third-party takes care of all the food and entertainment. 

The place was buzzing with several hundred people. There were several shops, including a Persian rug seller, as well as one that sold knick-knacks and t-shirts and belly dance outfits. Another sold the weirdest salt-and-pepper shakers I’ve seen: a man in a white thawb (salt) and a woman in burqa (pepper). Mohammed, feeling bad that our dune bashing was cut short, went and bought everyone a keffiyeh (the scarf Muslim men wear on their heads), and when he suggested I go have the seller tie it on for me, I felt obliged. If I do say so myself, I did not pull that thing off one bit. 

Outside the compound, there were camel rides, and an area sectioned off by tires where ATVs could be rented and ridden in broad circles. 

We took our seats right by the stage, and for the next two hours took turns making trips to the buffet and watching the performers and bellydancers. The food included a perfectly spiced BBQ chicken, lamb kabobs, and several dishes of garbanzo beans, humus and vegetables, while there was a cash bar for those who were inclined. 

On stage, a young bearded man wearing what looked to be a hoop skirt began to spin in place for what must have been 10 minutes, all the while balancing and arranging shallow wicker baskets in different shapes. Mohammed said this was a traditional Egyptian dance. 

Next came the bellydancer. She quickly won the crowd over with her, well, bellydancing, except for perhaps the dour older Muslim woman who had to move her plate so that the dancer could step onto and walk the length of her table (the other ladies at the table, however, clapped along gleefully). 

Finally, Tubb’s weird blue-contact eyes emerged from the crowd, and he beckoned that it was time to go, despite the fact that the performance was still going. We collected our stuff. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, while the bellydancer was still up there,” said Mohammed as we walked out. 

He was right, of course, but sometimes after a successful day of dune bashing, you’ve got to quit while you’re ahead.