Happy Birthday to me...

For my birthday today, we went out into the desert.  A Yemeni driver took us, though he was born and raised in Qatar...essentially crazy driving up and down the sand dunes.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are some pictures and videos

 Stopped for some camel fun on the way....

 Sergey getting on Rajan, the camel, as opposed to Rajan, our cleaner.

 This guy wasn't too happy.  The noise he was making was like a lion's roar, but for some reason I can't hear it on the video.

 Sergey enjoying his ride.

 And getting off the camel....

 Our driver Awad.

 Nothing but desert ahead.  We actually came to the road sign that means "End of speed limit."  In other words, drive as fast as you want.  You can see the desert in front of us...

I could only open a window when we were on flat terrain.  Interestingly, there was Arabic music blaring in the car, but the wind drowns it out.  Those clusters of white tents are "camps," where families go and stay on the weekends, or apparently sometimes for months at a time.  I was trying to figure out why, but Awad's English wasn't good enough.  I guess it's just tradition, since 50 years ago, it was largely a Bedouin culture.

An inlet of the Persian Gulf....It was a STEEP  cliff down to the water.

 To catch a lizard....those little buggers are quick!

Every person we came in contact to was Rajan's "friend," so he had to stop and say hello.

 In the distance is Saudi Arabia.

 And this is the closest I will ever get to Saudi land.  Around the inlet, we were only about 2 km away....more than close enough.

 The Persian Gulf really is beautiful and very warm to swim in.  Down in the south of Qatar, it wasn't as salty as in Doha.  Not sure why.

 Close up of Saudi.
All in all it was a fun afternoon.