My First Real Desert Excursion

Last Friday, Bill, Joe and I decided to take a trip out to see the desert. Joe and I are new to Kuwait and Bill wanted to take us out to see the real "sandbox". We of course being newbies, jumped at the chance! LOL So we piled into Bill's Jeep and off we went.

Leaving the city we were reminded that it is indeed a flat environment! However, we drove about 30 minutes northwest of Kuwait City to Mutlaa Ridge which apparently used to be part of an ancient river bank. It may not seem like much of a hill/ridge in comparison to the Rocky Mountains back home, but when you haven't seen any actual earth taller than a pile of rubble for the last two months, this was an exciting site to behold! :) It overlooks part of the "Highway of Death" that the Iraqi Military came in on during the Invasion in 1990, and over the past few years, Bill has found numerous ammunition shells and shrapnel up there left behind from the days of the war.

When we came across this seemingly random sign, we nervously laughed at the possibilities of what it could be stating as no one was quite sure what it actually said until after we returned home and had it translated.......it actually says "No Camping or Setting Up Tents". In the winter months, many Kuwaiti families bring these huge tents, rugs, cushions, etc. and have their maids/servants "set up house" out here during the weekends as they enjoy relaxing and eating out in the desert!

Some avid 4x4'ers made many attempts to DRIVE up the soft sandy side of the ridge and in the end did make it up. There were a few times it appeared that they were about to roll their vehicle, but thankfully ("hamdulillah" - thx be to God) they did not. We decided to play it safe and climb up the ridge in our flip flops and made it to the top to see..............miles and miles of desert. LOL

Bill and I found some recently used shotgun shells,........apparently a GREAT place to shoot a gun?

Below you can see an average Kuwaiti family enjoying a nice afternoon meal in the desert. The weather is significantly cooler this time of the year, so there were a fair amount of people out and about the ridge letting their kids burn off some energy by climbing up and down.



Speaking of climbing up and down.......here's Bill and Joe! :)

And the most memorable moment of the afternoon came when we saw some moving bumps on the horizon and discovered it was a herd of camel wandering about! I tried to get a picture, but couldn't get my digital camera to zoom properly. I did get a good, yet slightly shaky video clip of them though. Another one of those surreal moments of "Oh my word!! I am really in the Middle East!!!" I apologize for my squeaky voice during that footage. My voice apparently gets like that when I am really excited about something! LOL Also included on this clip is my first experience of driving on the highway! :) Sorry that the quality is not that great, I am definitely an amateur videographer. Hope you enjoy my first attempt at "live footage'!! :)