BY Clay Larroy
Leisure
travel is
a wonderful experience that everyone should have in their lifetime. Even
business travel can be made enjoyable. There are some aspects of travel that
can detract from your enjoyment. When
planning to fly for a trip, don't forget any frequent flier miles you might
have racked up. It does you no good to hang onto those once you've already gone
on your big vacation. Even if you don't have enough miles to cover the whole
trip, many airlines will allow you to discount your rate using your miles. When you want
to plan a vacation contact me!
JEEP SAFARI
BY RANIA MARGARI
What’s a good girl from Greece doing
spending Christmas in the desert?
Ahmed - both our driver and guide - walked to each side of the
Jeep and released air from the tires to allow them to ride smoothly over the
top of the deep desert sand. He then offered to give the women of our company a
warm-up drive with the Jeep in the desert. Sitting on the front seat of Ahmed’s
Jeep and following the orders of my friends who had been there before, I
reached for my seatbelt. The buckle was frozen shut. I turn to Ahmed; "Do
you know that there is something wrong with your seatbelt?"
"Well, yes, of course I know, I have done this
myself!" he said with a crooked smile. "When one rides in my Jeep she
must trust me. There is no need for seatbelt." I had to agree: I had no
choice as Ahmed’s Jeep was the best of the those available, and he was the most
experienced driver. I accepted my lot in life.
We continued along the road, tracing the shoreline. To get to
the undeveloped beaches here, a Jeep or other 4-wheel-drive vehicle is a
necessity. The sand dunes extend right up to the water’s edge and the feeling
of remoteness is tangible. I was in another world. Without warning, we turned
away from the shore into the desert. I sipped my water as we sped along, the
hot wind whipping by my head, the sand occasionally stinging my face and making
me glad for my new sunglasses. Deeper in the desert now, the only thing I could
see was huge dunes of sand where several jeeps were trying to best each other
with extreme maneuvers. Soon, my directional orientation was totally gone and
there was no way I could have found my way back if they had left me there. A
stunning vision of magnificent dunes as far as the eye could see stretched
before me, with not a plant in site. At one end of a sand canyon a group of
Jeep owners huddled together, pointing at the dunes, planning their attacks on
the sand. Behind them three camels walked between the Jeeps as though sizing up
the mechanical competition.
Ahmed turned our Jeep toward one
of the larger dunes. The vehicle fishtailed as sand shot backwards in a plume
from under the tires. I gripped my seat and hunched down as we spun sideways
across the face of the dune. We topped the crest of the dune’s ridge and
powered our way toward the edge of the sand canyon. Suddenly, everything grew
quiet as our car left the earth.
Our jeep shot into the air over the top of a large dune. Ahmed
expertly guided the vehicle to a landing and we sped forward toward a sandy
incline to our left. We hit the dune at top speed and moved quickly up its side
as another jeep came over the top twenty feet away. The Jeep slid crazily to
the left and then bounced far to the right, throwing us into the air and back
down again in a continuous motion. Another Jeep ran close behind us, its
occupants bouncing in their seats with every dip and turn. The sun spun around
my head as we first turned east, then west, then in some other direction as we
spun giant circles in the sand. I thought of my seatbelt and the cat I had left
behind.
Hours later, I was fully engaged in my desert roller coaster,
each new dip in the sand an adventure in adrenalin and bladder control. Soon, I
was laughing and screaming with each pitch and turn. Ahmed grinned. "You
like?" I did, I admitted. This could grow on a girl.
The sun light on the ride back turned deep red against the
desert sands. That night, we ate with Ahmed’s family around a campfire as his
brothers played a lute and drums, singing to us as we dined. Tired, I dozed as
we drove back along the coast to Doha, safe, comfortable and never once
thinking about the broken seatbelt at my side.
REFERENCE SITES:
“Travelers never think that they are the foreigners.”
Mason Cooley
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