Taxi tour of the UAE

OK, first of all let me assure you that the trip I'm about to describe is not possible to do in a taxi. For a start, the meter would probably burn out through excessive 'beeping' and secondly, the wheels would get stuck, erm, not far south of Liwa.

This weekend I took a trip from Al Ain to The Empty Quarter south of Liwa Oasis and back to Al Ain again. I guess you could say the trip formed a rectangular shape, skirting along the Omani boarders to the east, the Gulf coast to the north and the Saudi borders to the south and west. We even sliced through the middle of the UAE too. We did a lot of milage, as you can see!

Starting in Al Ain we drove north west to Abu Dhabi, taking the road west along the coast a little until reaching the turn off for Liwa which took us south into Liwa Oasis. Had lunch at Liwa Hotel, waited for the heat to go off the day a bit before driving into the dunes, had a look at Mereb Dune before driving deeper into the desert to set up camp before sunset:














Camp Taxi (please click photos to enlarge)
















The sun sinks behind the dune
















Just stick your head in the sand and try to
forget about it!


It was pretty windy around sunset and the tent looked as if it was going to go sailing off to Saudi never to be seen again. However, the wind did die down and as the sky grew black we were treated to an amazing blanket of stars and later a spectacular moon rise. I would've loved to have taken some photos of this but my camera knows its limits..

Next morning, damp from the desert dew we had breakfast, packed up and headed home. Rather than going the way we came we decided to take a 'short cut' back to Al Ain through the desert. After all, as the crow flies, Al Ain isn't that far away from Liwa, is it?! So, we drove to Hamim, the most eastern village on the Liwa Oasis and then engaged 4X4 for a three hour drive through the dunes on sand tracks until we reached the road which borders Oman and takes us north to Al Ain!














Our 'road' all the way from Hamim to just
north of Um Al Zumool.
















Camels far from the dangers of busy highways!


After a while on the road through the dunes you begin to lose your sense of perspective. At one moment I thought I saw a wrecked car on the side of the road which, as I got closer,
was actually a crumpled rubbish bin.














We need to take a right to Um Al Zumool..I think...
















Miles and miles of unconnected electricity poles
that begin in the middle of nowhere. This was the
last stretch of road before we reached the tarmac
that would take us back to Al Ain!