“What? Today is Thursday again?” I wondered once again when I was kicked out of the office at 4pm and stood in the heat of afternoon sun in front of our collection station. “Why is that the days pass so fast here?” I began to think.
I started mindlessly my 40 minutes drive home through the busy city of Doha. When I looked into some other drivers I saw that I was not alone there going the thousand times known route through empty Doha city center and then flat boring landscape full of low sandy villas, feeling lethargic and tired, with no better plan than to sit at home, have a dinner, surf internet and fall asleep. Actually they were not only a few of them, it seemed that that all the others were having the same “zero” plan.
And then I got it!! When you do the same thing all and all over again, all the days will fall into one and week will chase a week in a devilish fast sequence. “Every day same. I feel like a robot” I immediately recalled a sentence from 5th grade English class many years backJ That’s why I was feeling so psychically sick!! Cure? Break the routine!!
Break the routine. Easy to say, but much harder to do. Especially in Qatar it is double truth. Why? Because you are in this alone!! Nobody else seems to be bothered the monotonicity of the everyday life. So nobody else will accompany you, support you or encourage you. They are dragging you with them. You have to have a big deal of self motivation to break the cage. Other problem is that there is seemingly nothing to do!! There is 45°C outside. There are not interesting places to visit or to go, which will draw your attention straight away. Except kite, all activities I was used to were not possible here and all communities of people doing squash, board games, dancing, canoeing or any other free time activity are either non-existent or invisible. I had to start from scratch.
So my first steps led to the most obvious and accessible place of active relaxation, to a gym. Yes, to a gym. A place full of big biceps guys with tiny legs doing arm curls with ton free weights in front of the mirror. “But what…I’ve never done it, so I’ll try and if I don’t like, I quit…easy” I thought and went in. “Hmm I see your situation, but the minimum membership I can offer you is for four months!” told me the consultant. “So I have to be going for four moths?” I asked in disbelief. “You don’t have to be coming, but you need to pay!!” was his straight answer. “Ehh…but once I’m here…” Now I’m going three times a week and you wouldn’t believe it, it is quite fun.
But the most important is that I clear my mind, tire my body and when I go to bed I feel that I’ve done something worth, that I live my life. And I feel peace J
But I cannot go training every day and having four blank days is just too much. Sometimes I go kiting, but the winds here are not very reliable, so I needed some more plans. Unfortunately I don’t have 4x4 so my exploration options are limited. Because I still feel that deep inside the enemy Qatari landscape there are a lot of hidden treasure places. Just you probably need to go far enough.
Anyway…one day I found on the internet the link to the highest Qatar point Qurayn Abu al Bawl with the impressive height of 103m above sea J It was not far from my home, so I took GPS coordinates and drove on a rarely used road to a point around 3 kilometers from the hill. I don’t need to tell you that I couldn’t see it yet!! I set azimuth and started walking. Around 1km from the spot I was still not sure which terrain unevenness might be my target. Only after I came down the last “ridge” I saw it another 1km further. A table shaped hill around 30m high J Found & Conquered!!!
On my back home I for my Lancer an alternative route I saw Google maps. I saw several sand dunes across the road, but I wanted to try. I had plenty of time anyway!! Soon I discovered that nobody had been using this road for years, because it was full of holes and I had to drive slowly. It was still ok until I saw the first dune in my way! It was a big obstruction and the bypass went straight off the road!
Fortunately Qatar has proper desert with sand only in one place and it was not here, so around the dune was a hard stony field which the Lancer could take easily J A quick decision I had take when coming back to the road and had to cross a rather small sand field. “There are enough stones around to build the road through if I get stuck!” I justified flooring the throttle and jumping through!!
It took me around 2.5 hours to get through 20km stretch of this half road track. I had to do couple of more trips off road and do some more identical justifications, but I reached the other end safely, without any damage and in a good mood.
Timing was perfect, because after a quick lunch I met Ovi, the Qatar kite guru and his students in Messaieed desert to go kiting into one inner lagoon created by tide between the dunes. I hopped into his Land Cruiser and after 15 minutes of easy desert driving we were on the spot. Super flat water I have never been riding on and a decent wind for the 15m provided an awesome session. It was a bit weird because I was the only one with kite big enough, so I felt sad for the others fighting to keep theirs in the air while I was jumping between them!!
Three hours till sunset were quickly gone and we moved to Ovi’s paragliding spot. Unfortunately there was not enough wind to fly, so we sat down to the warm sand, watched stars, enjoyed the desert silence and chat.
That was a weekend day how I like it and how it should be. “Hmmm…maybe it is possible to have fun here in Qatar” I thought.
And my feeling grew even stronger when next weekend we did the same trip, but with opposite results. From the beginning we saw that there is no wind for kites, so we went directly to try paragliding. And we were lucky!! Ovi launched his tandem glider and flew with each of us. Wind was not strong so we were flying only low, next to the dune which slope is turning the horizontal sea breeze up. I felt that the glider is like kite.
You need to feel the power of the wind in the handles and then you can do everything. We were flying close to the dune that you could touch it!! Like kiting in 10cm of water I felt…smooth turns, ups and downs, stalling, accelerating…amazing J
We finished after sunset again, stopped at the beach for a swim on the way back and the Qatar unexpected chillout continued…
Now I’m almost sure…Qatar is not that bad as it looked. All things are here…somewhere hidden and it takes a lot of time and effort to find them. Maybe they don’t have the quality as in other countries, but they have their own magic. With enough determination to go against the current and persistence in trying to find the way, this place can be as you want it to be…it will take time, but I believe it can be done…and this is an important discovery for me, because my departure is far far away and I will have the time!!
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