Dune Bashing in Dubai

As part of my ridiculous travel plans to get to Brasil, I found myself in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) for a full two days just before Christmas. After getting reacquainted with civilization on my first night, I decided to take a desert tour on my second night. The tour was mainly aimed at families and included several activities to appeal to kids (camel rides, sandboarding), but the draw for me was the dune bashing. This is a sport whereby they take a perfectly good 4WD vehicle and hurl it up and down the large sand dunes outside of Dubai. I was grouped with 5 Toyota executives from Japan. They were quite comical as they would unleash a frenzied string of Japanese shouting as we seemed to be going out of control followed by calmly saying "Good...Good" in a very sinister way.

These pictures don't really capture the ungodly angles and size of the dunes but they do show the forgiving nature of the sand. It is incredibly fine and provides a silky ride. It is somewhat comparable to snowmobiling. To get traction in the sand, they simply deflate their tires to grip the sand better. One vehicle got stuck, but was quickly tugged out by another vehicle.

Dubai's other natural resource (although, not nearly as valuable)