A not so casual drive to the Inland Sea

A couple of weekends ago we went camping at Khor Al Udaid, also known as the Inland Sea. It is considered one of Qatar's most awe-inspiring natural beauties. Located on the southeastern most tip of Qatar, it is an inlet of the Arabian Gulf (or Persian Gulf, depending on where your loyalties lie) that sneaks in along the Qatar-Saudi border. There are no real roads leading to the Inland Sea so 4x4 vehicles are necessary to take on the vast & treacherous dunes. We drove about 45 minutes out of Doha. We passed camel crossing signs, chemical plants, and oil refineries until we reached Sealine Beach Resort where the road ends and the dunes to Khor Al Udeid begin. They recommend that you travel in a caravan for safety; in case a car gets stuck or breaks down. Since there are no roads, the likelihood that a tow truck would happen by is pretty slim. However, we saw lots of cars that looked as though they were alone, not to mention driving at night (which I assume would be really dangerous).

We had a total of 10 people and 3 cars and we probably looked like a Nissan commercial except for the fact that we all kept getting stuck in the sand like the amateur dune drivers we are. I was pretty nervous about a group of neophytes taking on the dunes alone but what an exhilarating experience. We had a GPS and tire pumps (you let some of the air out of your tires to help with traction), cell phones, and camping supplies but I was still nervous about one of our cars doing cartwheels down a mountain of sand. We'd reach the base of a 50 foot dune (small in comparison to most) rev the engine and go pummeling through sand and rocks to get to the top. Because of the sand was so soft our 40 km/hr hustle would quickly slow down to 20 or 15 km/hr in just a matter of seconds as the sand would slip out from under the car (think of trying to run up a sand dune, exhausting right?). Even in a car supposedly made for off-roading, our car struggled to reach the apex. Often we'd get stuck and passengers would have to hop out of the car and give it a couple of heaves so the driver could back down and try it again. If you ever thought pushing a car out of snow was difficult... try soft sand where not only is the car sinking with every tired rotation but you're getting buried also and huge sand flies are constantly buzzing around, nipping at you. Once the car made it to the top, with or with out the passengers for the ride up, we'd hold our breath, grab the handy-dandy ceiling handles (who's purpose I fully understand now), brace ourselves and go barreling down the dune, which, if we were lucky, didn't gain any extra depth on the other side. (Sometimes we'd cruise up a small, agreeable dune only to find it had a 50ft drop on the other side.) There were breaks in the dunes where we'd find ourselves on a large flat, damp area. It turns out these are salt flats. Flat yes, but still a rocky ride. Especially when we'd have to speed up on them to get enough velocity going to make it over a dune.

Without a doubt the most frightening part of going up or down the dunes were the angles and not just front to back but also side to side. The car could easily be tilted 45 degrees towards the left or right. More experienced drivers will actually do this on purpose. You can see the angles that drivers have taken these dunes in the pictures below. I've been told that being a passenger in a car with a professional is equivalent to being on a roller coaster ride.

It's hard to remember exactly how tall this dune was but it was definitely intimidating enough for us to drive around.

Check out the tracks on this dune. At the top of the dune you can almost see the hood of a car that just drove over the other side.

More tracks. Not sure if the vertical ones are from someone going up or coming down.

I didn't see what made these tracks but could it be anything other than a camel?

This was the view at the top of a dune (close to the Inland Sea), once we made it up. We got stuck on the first try and had to back down and try again only to have a little panic attack because one of the check engine lights had turned on (in a brand new car). Once we got to the top and checked out the manual we discovered it was the "low tire pressure" light. D'oh!

Same inlet, but the other end where the water came in from the sea.

Khor Al Udaid

I don't think I've ever seen such a rich turquoise.

More beach. We camped in a much more secluded area than where we first arrived. Across the water is Saudi Arabia.

More tracks. This was about 15ft tall and a near 90 degree drop, yet someone rode it.

This is the part of the beach where we camped. No one else was there on the beach. There was a campsite a good 200-250 yards away on top of a dune but we could barely see them, just hear the music they blasted most of the night. 

Tire tracks filled in with the high tide.

The next morning we went for a swim and it was definitely the saltiest water I've ever been in. In fact, it was so salty you didn't really have to tread water to float; you just had to stick your arms out to the side and relax and you'd bounce around in the water like a stick. When I exhaled as much air as possible, I would sink down to my chin and when I inhaled as much air as I could, I'd pop back up out of the water to where the water only came up to about 2-3 inches below my shoulders. It kinda made me feel like a buoy. Someone mentioned that the oil companies take out large quantities of water, desalinate it to flush out their systems and put all the salt back in the sea. I'm curious to know what that does to the ecosystem although I've been told that the Gulf has a pretty rich marine life.

Because of the location of our campsite, off the beach and above the water but below several dunes, we constantly had people driving past us all night. This was one car that flew past. It wasn't as close as the others but this guy was tearing it up so we were glad he was further away.

The next morning we packed up to leave and as one couple took down their tent a little scorpion and 3 of the biggest beetles I've ever seen came skittering out. The pictures are a bit hard to see because no one wanted to get that close. It turns out it's a good thing we didn't. The scorpion in the picture above is a deathstalker, one of the only scorpions in the world who's poison can kill a human.

Interesting fact: scientists are studying the neurotoxins in deathstalkers' poison as it's believed that they can help treat brain tumors and diabetes.

I wasn't able to find out specifically what kind of beetle this is so it's been dubbed a "dune beetle."

The ride back across the dunes. You can see how the sand just seems to go on forever.

Again, not the clearest picture but those are camels in the front and a very large caravan of cars heading out to the Inland Sea and disappearing into the dunes. I tried to get some better pictures of the camels but the owner turned me away because I didn't have any money on me (all after telling me how expensive his 100 camels were).

All in all, it was definitely the most amazing experience I've had here so far. We sat around a campfire smoking shisha (a hookah filled with fruit infused tobacco) staring at stars I've never been able to see before (having always lived near big, bright cities), listening to arabic music floating down to our campsite from our neighbors across the way, and flashing our lanterns whenever a group of SUVs came whizzing through the dunes in the hopes that they'd see us and not tear through our campsite (yes they were that close).