Dubai: The 10-day desert journey on camel through the UAE desert came to an end on Sunday when the voyagers arrived at the Hamdan Bin Mohammad Heritage Centre in Global Village.
The voyagers, who arrived past 5pm, were greeted by a group of Emiratis performing traditional dances and singing. Along with the participants of the voyage were the Yemeni voyager, Ahmad Al Qasimi, and Abdullah Hamdan Bin Dalmouk, CEO of the Hamdan Bin Mohammad Heritage Centre, who also went on the journey with the voyagers.
Max Stanton, a 26-year-old British-American participant in the voyage, spoke to Gulf News prior to the trip about his interest in Emirati culture. He said that he chose to participate in the voyage to get in touch with the local culture and experience the life Emiratis lived years before technology was introduced.
“The journey was harder than I thought and the hardest was riding the camel,” he said. “But if you stay with the same camel, it’s much easier because you learn what it likes and how it responds to things.”
After the journey, he said that despite his exhaustion, he has learned a lot from the trip that he wouldn’t have otherwise. Although he fell off the camel once, he developed a special relationship with his camel.
“I learned how to take care of the camels, how to feed them, water them, how to tie them up at night so they don’t run away and how to put the saddle on so that it’s comfortable for both you and the camel.”
Bin Dalmouk said that many of the voyagers had little to no knowledge of how to handle a camel prior to the journey. He has seen an evident difference in their personalities and skills.
“At first, we had voyagers who could only hold on to their camel ropes,” he said. “We came back today from the trip and half of them can stand on the camel’s back.”
Another participant in the journey was 24-year-old Hamdan Saeed, an Emirati currently living a Bedouin lifestyle in Al Ain. Though Saeed is more informed about the desert and camels than others, he said one of the most important lessons this trip taught the voyagers was patience.
“There were many challenges and one of them was having a camel not respond to you,” he said. “In those situations you have to be patient, to keep trying until your camel trusts you and does what you want.”
Upon arrival, Saeed smeared saffron on the camels of the voyagers to honour them for being part of the voyage’s success. He explained that in camel races, the winning camel is smeared in saffron to honour its winning and that, in this voyage, all camels came first for completing the challenge. When asked why saffron specifically, Saeed said that it is the most expensive substance in their culture.
Saeed encourages Emiratis to take part in such voyages to explore a life beyond skyscrapers and technology and connect with the camels.
Maria Botros is a trainee at Gulf News
