Camping in Qatar. There are worse things. I'll let you know when I discover what they are. Ha! No, no... we really did have a good time and there were some pretty amazing moments that made all the hard parts worth it.
What's different about camping here? Well, let's start with the getting there. That's different. The directions: drive, drive, drive, take a right at the round about with the fountain, drive, drive, drive some more.
Go straight for a while. When you see a u-turn slip, take that and then drive a little longer. Take a right at the junk yard.
Oh, wait... not this junk yard. Turn around. Go back on the highway. Drive a little further until the second u-turn slip. Take a right at this junk yard. Yes. Of course.
This one.
Follow the "road" until you see the water. At the water, take a right. The sand is loose, so be sure to keep 100m between you and the next car so you can accelerate your way out of a bad situation if you need to. Sigh. So much for that new car clean. My favorite words, "I brought my tow rope." Oh. Good. Because it looks like it'll be needed.
Let's see what this Sorento is made of.
And we made it!
You'd think that getting there was the hard part. Right? Well, it should have been. We actually made it there without incident. It became painfully clear to me that setting up camp in the sand was much different than setting up camp in the dirt. It also became painfully clear to me how much I missed our bins of camping gear that we'd spent 15 years collecting, from our camp themed wedding shower all the way up to last summer. We've got some really great stuff. In Oregon. This was kind of a last minute camping trip so we had to decide how much money we really wanted to invest in something unknown. And we had to decide how much money we wanted to invest in stuff we knew we already had back home. We, admittedly, went cheap. It's hard to justify dropping 900 QAR on a tent when your $329 USD tent is sitting in a storage room. So we didn't. We dropped 150 QAR (about $40 USD) on a lesser tent. Dumb. I'm sure there was a happy middle ground. Steve zipped away to find our perfect tent spot. I worked on trying to set up a make-shift kitchen out of the back of our Kia, and Zoey, Livy, and Drew were already submerged in the warm gulf waters before the ignition was even turned off.
The tent? Oh, well, the center pole snapped on that 150 QAR gem before all four poles even touched the ground. There we were. Steve fuming. Kids swimming. Me laughing. Why not laugh? Steve was not amused, but what else could you do in that moment? We have three kids, clearly not the right camping gear, and no tent. That's funny. Thankfully while our supplies were marginal, our friends were not. One family took Livy in their tent. One family took Zoey. One family tried to take Drew. And one family had a spare (tiny) two person tent that they let Steve and I borrow. We were set. At least in that moment. We were set enough to move on with our extremely hot day in the sand.
By the time the sun was slipping away from us, a few things became clear:
1) Truman was not going to make it without a tent in which to contain him.
2) Drew was going to refuse to sleep with the family that so kindly offered to take him in. And, most importantly...
3) We didn't pack enough Hershey bars for s'mores, nor did we remember marshmallows or graham crackers.
What also became clear? That we are surrounded by some pretty cool people over here. There was a family that came for just the day who offered to take Truman home with them. The family that Drew so blatantly offended, well - they had plenty of marshmallows and graham crackers! Our kids are making great new friends. Our tiny world is expanding and
that makes all of
this worth it.
Sure, Steve and Livy ended up sleeping in the car at some point. No, we didn't have bathrooms or running water. Yes, swimming in the gulf when you're hot and sticky is anything but refreshing. Of course, the only hotdogs they sell in this country are hot pink in color and just plain weird. No, the marshmallows aren't JetPuff. And why wouldn't the only Hershey bars they sell in this country have cookie bits in them?
But I'll take those weird hot pink hotdogs, a broken tent, half baked s'mores, and hot salty water so long as it's all with good company. You know what else? We got to see a stingray! We saw gorgeous blue and red crabs scuttling around at our feet. The seashells were like nothing you've see before (except for in the shops at the Oregon coast where you buy them), and the sunset? Overwhelming. I really can't describe what it's like to stand on a spit of sand, surrounded by warm blue water, looking to your right you see the sun slipping beneath the mangroves, to your left you see the moon. All in the same breath.
The best part of the trip? Steve and his friends hunting and gathering. Who needs entertainment when you have three grown men with one trident and countless little crabs darting away as fast as they can in fear for their lives. These crabs were killed, roasted, and eaten within the span of about 14 minutes. I'm pretty sure there was grunting involved. Hysterical.
One more Qatar adventure down in the books, er, the blog!
