The next morning, we started our safari with Arabian Adventures. The first tour we took, A Day in the Dunes (http://www.arabian-adventures.com/ToursSafaris/AbuDhabi/Safaris/DayDunes/DayDunes.Asp?nav=2⊂=2)
, started at 9am, allowing us to enjoy a wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant (included in the price of the room).

We were the only ones in the vehicle, and I believe this is fairly typical, as there aren’t many tours running out of Abu Dhabi. The vehicle was a GMC Yukon, very new and clean. The driver/tour guide spoke excellent English, and was very professional.

Our first stop was the Al Wathba camel race track outside Abu Dhabi. Although there weren’t any races that day (I believe they were still in the process of building the actual race track). However, there was many jockeys practicing, and we were able to get some great photos of them as they posed for the camera as they went by.

We next stopped in a small little shopping center for the race track, where we could buy all the camel race provisions (?) that we needed. I think it was more of a stop to allow our driver to have a smoke.

Our next stop was in the dunes themselves. Although the vehicle wasn’t equipped to do proper offroading (“dune bashing”) we were still offered a very thrilling ride by our driver. We were in the Arjan area. We stopped to take some photos of some camels at a camel farm, and stopped for lunch.

The lunch spot was sort of strange – it was a little patch of land that had some basic structures to provide shade, but the area was dirty with trash – while the rest of the desert was clean and untouched. I’m not sure why he chose to stop here – maybe because it was the only place that offered shade, but it wasn’t even that hot.

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.