Wednesday, February 4th.
This morning I decided to walk along the corniche in the opposite direction. The ultimate goal was to walk to the National Museum Metro Station to meet up with my tour guide for the afternoon. It was another beautiful, sunny and hot day. I walked for 2 hours admiring the skyline, the dhow boats and the Arabian Sea. I stopped at the Waqif Souk for lunch and then carried on to the beautiful National Museum which is built to resemble a desert rose. I met my guide Salman, dressed as a Saudi with the white robe and agal (the doubled black cord holding the headdress in place) but actually from Pakistan. I had the front seat and we were joined by three young men from Paris and a young Chinese couple living in Sydney. We were on a tour called the desert safari. We had several stops: an opportunity to drive a 4x4; a camel ride; sandboarding; and a dune ‘bashing’ drive over the large dunes in our Toyota land cruiser. None of us wanted to drive the 4x4’s or take a camel ride (they were both extra costs), but the dune bashing was quite exciting as Salman expertly drove like a wildman up and over dune after dune, sometimes sliding out and other times descending steep slopes (so much for the environment). When we got to the end everyone except me tried out the sandboarding, which was actually tobogganing on a snowboard. I didn’t want the sand or to have to climb back up the dune. However, the views were spectacular as at this site the dunes actually meet the sea and there is an area called the inland sea where the sea invades the low lying area. We stayed there until sunset and then began the ride back over the dunes to the highway and back to Doha. On the way I noticed the light standard on the highway changed colours from blue to green to red… Salman told me to look closer because the anthem was written around each pole repeatedly. Talk about too much money. I took the Metro home and had dinner at the Foul and Falafel restaurant again. Then time to relax before bed.
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