EID of four wheels

Eid al Adha is one of many Islamic holidays. They don’t have fixed date, because they follow the Islamic calendar. This year it fell on Thursday 26.12. We got holiday on Sunday too, so along with the weekend it was four daysJ Government employees they have whole week off, but private sector was not that lucky!! Was it? ;) And with UAE National day on Wednesday 2.12. and personal leave on 3.12. I had two four day weekend in the row J Excellent.

So after Thursday we with Rune relaxed by playing Magic and winning everything we touched, I stood on Friday morning on dirty Mussafah street in front of Abu Ibrahim’s “Boom quads” shop. How that happened?

Going camping to the desert is a common, maybe the most favorite outdoor activity of the locals and expats probably too. You just load your four 4x4 with booze, meat and grills…drive into the desert…make camp…drive around with the cars…get drunk…and leave home next morning. I tried to take my AWD once, but it’s not fun, because it’s not made for crashing dunes. So last time we went I opted to be a co-driver, which wasn’t much fun either, because you don’t hold any wheel!! So on the following occasion I wanted to give my Tiguan one more chance and tried driving around some easy stuff while my friends were deflating tires, but I got stuck on the top of a flat dune, because I only didn’t stop facing downhill. This wouldn’t happen to the 4x4. No fun!!

“There has to be something how even I can enjoy desert safaris and camping” I thought. And then I remembered somebody talking about the possibility to rent quite cheaply a quad bike with trailer for a whole day. “That’s it. Next time I have to try this!!” I decided and started investigation where, how, and how much. After a week I got contact to a group of Czech people taking quads to Liwa for three days during EID. They gave me contact to Abu’s shop and with Rune’s kind permission to install a towing hook to his Pajero and taking it to the desert for the first time, I was ready to join them with one more quad J

If you want to go somewhere where some real big dunes are, you have to go to Liwa oasis. It’s quite far, but it’s worth it. And for beasts as Yamaha YFZ350 Banshee and YFM700 Raptor definitely are there is no other challenge. So after two hours of slow driving we stopped at the last petrol station before the desert edge, filled all canisters and tanks, bought fire wood and headed inside. We stopped at the end of a salt plain, unloaded quads and the learning could begin!! What learning? Learning how to drive a manual motorcycle/quad. I have never ridden anything like this and I even didn’t know to do it theoretically. “Changing gears is on your left foot, rear brake on your right, clutch is on your left hand and front brake on your right. Throttle is this small lever on the right. Have fun J” was a short introduction from Michal. To my surprise, as easily it sounded that simply I executed it and in five minutes I was driving around with adrenaline rising!!

“Let’s climb that dune” I looked at the closest high dune and floored the throttle. Hnnnnn..hnnnn…bbloooob..bloob..blo…and the engine stalled. “Damn..I forgot to fill the tank” I laughed. Before we refueled the others came and we made a camp behind a small dune not far from the plain. We had a problem with one of the Banshees, when the clutch got burned, so Michal spend three hours with letting it fixed in nearby Liwa town and I punctured tire in the Pajero. Again from the tire side so it cannot be fixed and you have to buy new one. “It’s getting expensive this trip!!” I complained about my bad luck. I have never punctured tire in my life and here I destroyed already second in four months!!

I think I’ve found exactly what I was looking for. Riding quads in the desert is more fun than driving 4x4s, because you are in direct contact with the sand, dunes and wind. You drive usually faster, because you can clear bumps better and you don’t have to worry about damaging the vehicle. You are riding more, because you don’t have to stop and scout the terrain in front of you and you can basically go any direction. But the biggest advantage is that you don’t have to be afraid of getting stuck somewhere and spent two hours with digging and getting the car out!!

So I quickly got used to all those new control elements and was climbing the highest dunes around and enjoying the incredible panoramas from tops. The most I enjoyed the challenge of finding a way to get to the dune top, driving on sharp tipped dune ridges, slowly crossing lower dune tops without knowing what is behind or driving in spiral inside cone shaped holes between dunes. Sometimes trying several times from different directions.

It was also the difference between the 350 I was riding and the 700. With the Raptor, once I learned to floor the first gear, it got too easy to get anywhere because the machine had incredible power. You could just point to 100m 45° slope, floor it and drive to the top. Banshee was also very powerful, but just couldn’t do that much, so I just enjoyed it a bit moreJ

Second day evening we went to Al Moreeb dune, the tallest or at least one of the tallest dunes in the area. It is around 200m flat slope dune, where all the Emiratis with tuned Land Cruisers are competing who can get further up. We tried on one of the lower slopes with our quads. It’s kind of impressive feeling when you are standing on top and looking down the valley. We stayed till the sunset and returned to the camp.

Then some people went home, but chose to stay one more day, despite paying the quad only for two days. “Let’s try how is it to have my own quad for whole day and do some longer trip” I decided to leave the any possible problems away and stay hidden in the desert, where nobody can reach me ;)

I woke up quite early in the morning and went for around two hour wide circle around the camp. Just amazing. I also tried to find a way to the highest dune from the steepest side. For me it was a tough challenge and that was the best out of all trip. Elevations, holes, sharp ridges and dune tips in a long steep cascade finished by a rather flat peak with sand blowing across the edge. Perfect for taking some pictures!! I have to admit that I was quite happy to get there from that side. It wasn’t for free J

And that was the end. Around 4pm we packed up and drove back to Abu Dhabi and home. Definitely a great fun and experience, no matter that it was quite expensive fun. We are already planning another trip, but this time with a destination…from A to B J Let’s see… but for now…only climbing and getting ready for the Kenya expedition on February. What? You haven’t heard about that?...Ehm, well…stay tuned J