Want to come along on a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the desert? Jennifer and I were fortunate to experience this during our most recent visit to Dubai. Our excursion started at about 3:30 AM in the morning, with the tour company picking us up from our hotel and driving for about an hour into the desert. It was still completely dark when we arrived, as they began inflating the balloons. After a short safety briefing, we piled into the baskets (about 20 people per balloon) and we were off!
The route of our flight was somewhat predictable, but still at the mercy of the morning air currents...or so we were told. The balloon ride took us across the land of the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve. This reserve was the United Arab Emirates' first national park and is one of its largest, equal to about 5% of the Emirate of Dubai's total area. The Dubai government established the reserve in 2003 to help preserve and protect the last bit of desert wilderness located near the rapidly developing urban centers of Dubai.
At the end of our flight, we landed in the middle of the desert just outside the reserve's eastern fence line, among a small herd of camels. This wasn't the usual landing location. For us, this meant a long (and often) very bumpy drive across the desert sands. The tour company had to use special desert-equipped 4x4s to shuttle us across the dunes, just to get us to a sandy desert road, where regular 4x4s transported us back to pavement, our various vans and tour buses, and civilization. This took over an hour.
The morning trek was followed by another (thankfully short) excursion into the desert reserve for breakfast at the bedouin-style Platinum Heritage Desert Camp, one of only a handful of such camps within the national park. We were transported by a small fleet of vintage 1940s-era landrovers, viewed the nature reserve's specially protected Arabian Ibex herds, and were treated to interactions with camels and a hunting falcon.
We finally returned to our hotel in Dubai by about Noon!
Return to United Arab Emirates
