“The Desert Safari Part II”

As I had earlier on said, the driver hit the sand dune at a right angle and up went the TOYOTA Land Cruiser; you could have seen the look on the occupants’ faces, they looked like they had been to the doors of hell and back! Surely, the “burger driver” should have warned us on what to expect but he did not, maybe that was part of the fun, eh! To make matters worse, the driver looked at all our faces and donned on a smile of satisfaction, as if to say “I got you p**ts down! As soon as he got on top of the dune, he swerved abruptly to achieve a position parallel to the dune and let the Cruiser slide down the dune in a sidewaysmotion; this looked like the vehicle was going to overturn but it didnot! It simply and gently slid to a comfortable upright stop and there we were among a host of many more Land Cruisers with occupants who must have suffered the same fate as us. We waited for close to 30 minutes as more and more Land Cruisers arriving. The drivers were all draped in jeans trousers and orange Tee Shirts all branded with the company’s name and logo, clearly, they all belonged to the same group. The vehicles all bore the company name painted on their sides and back doors. As soon as every vehicle came to a halt, the driver would rush to it tires and substantially reduce the Tire pressure to a bare minimum. We were told that, the vehicles would hold firmly onto the sand when the tire pressures are very low as compared to the normal road traction. Later on, I was able to learn that, these brands of drivers possess a special Desert Driving Permit; meaning that, not every Tom, Dick and Mfashumwana can drive on a Desert Safari! Afterthe waiting, we set off for the desert with the drivers racing with eachother, heading straight for sand dunes, some as high as 4 metres; whileon top, they would abruptly brake and let the vehicles slide sideways at a dangerously high angle until they hit the valleys. You could hear the ohs, ahs, ehs and so on! Some people were busy praying that the safari ended here, others were cursing while some of us were busy having the fun of a lifetime! I kept looking behind to the see the faces of the Indian diplomatic couple and the German couple, I could see that they were trying to keep up appearances but the reality was that, they were really frightened. Here we were in the centre of an Arabian Desert, trying to get ourselves killed in these “metallic horses” in the name of Desert Safari; maybe it was the right way to die, may be not! We eventually reached on top of a dune that was about 6 metres high and all the vehicles came to a stop. We disembarked and the drivers brought out a number of Ski equipment. We were going to try our luck or is it lack of luck in skiing down the sand dune as if it down an Alp in Switzerland! Many of us tried our skiing skills but we ended up falling to the ground (sorry, I mean the sand) after just a metre or so. Only a handful managed to ski all the way to the dune valley! After an hour or so, as the sun was threatening to hide its face, we boarded the vehicles and headed off for the final destination. This time around, we had gotten used to the strange driving styles of the desert drivers. These guys are very genius; they drive over barren desert, not even getting lost for a while! We eventually came back to the main road, crossed it and drove to another direction of the desert. We finally came to a desert resort complete with Camels, desert motorcycles and huge arena with a bar and restaurant of sorts. mfashumwana@fastmail.fm