Afternoon Newbie Desert Drive - Off Road Academy: Qudra Secret Dunes - Dubai - 8 Aug 2026

[Jakob T]

15 hours ago, Sergio del Rio said:

At 15:30, under conditions that most sensible human beings would describe as completely inappropriate for outdoor activity, thirteen brave souls gathered once again at the edge of the desert.

The temperature was somewhere between “unpleasant” and “surface of Mercury”.

There was no morning breeze. No golden sunrise. No gentle introduction.

Just heat.

A lot of heat.

Leading the expedition was Ale, with JP riding second in command. Giacomo held the centre of the convoy, while Yarem took the noble responsibility of sweeping from the rear, making sure that no man, woman, vehicle or miscellaneous bumper was abandoned to the desert.

Before departure, we managed to locate what could very generously be described as a tree.

It was small.

Very small.

Nevertheless, thirteen grown adults immediately gathered underneath it, desperately negotiating for approximately four square metres of shade.

There, beneath our heroic shrub, Ale began the briefing.

And then he produced… a tiny toy car.

With the seriousness of a military commander planning the Normandy landings, he used this miniature vehicle to demonstrate cresting and recovery techniques.

Considering the temperature, I spent most of the briefing wondering whether the little car would survive the explanation, melt into the sand, or simply turn into a fried egg.

Against all odds, it survived.

And so did we.

Then came the dunes.

Crests.

More crests.

Side dune riding.

More side dune riding.

And, naturally, a healthy number of stucks.

The desert appeared particularly affectionate today, repeatedly embracing members of the convoy from underneath and refusing to let go.

Radios came alive.

“Stuck.”

“Second refusal.”

“Need recovery.”

“Copy.”

At certain moments it felt less like an off-road drive and more like a very organised excavation project.

Then the sky changed.

What had already been an intense afternoon suddenly became something far more dramatic.

A sandstorm swept across the desert.

Within minutes, everything turned brown.

The sky was brown.

The dunes were brown.

The cars were brown.

Probably we were brown too.

Visibility dropped dramatically and following the vehicle ahead became an exercise in faith, concentration and desperately staring at two faint red lights disappearing into a wall of dust.

For a few moments, the desert completely swallowed the convoy.

And naturally, because timing is everything, this was precisely when one vehicle decided to get properly stuck.

Out came the shovels.

In the middle of the sandstorm, several of us began digging sand from underneath the belly of a very black vehicle.

We dug.

And dug.

And dug some more.

The sand kept coming back.

The wind kept blowing.

Visibility remained terrible.

And throughout this heroic collective effort, the driver of the aforementioned very black vehicle remained comfortably inside.

Presumably supervising.

Possibly adjusting the air conditioning.

Perhaps selecting music.

History may never know.

Eventually, man, machine and shovel defeated the desert once again and the convoy continued.

By the end of the afternoon, we had experienced extreme heat, crests, side slopes, recoveries, digging, almost nonexistent shade and a spectacular sandstorm.

In other words:

A perfectly normal Carnity drive.

Ale led us safely through the chaos, JP supported from the front, Giacomo kept the middle together, Yarem swept behind us, and thirteen overheated humans somehow emerged from the desert still smiling.

The little toy car survived.

The black vehicle survived.

We survived.

And somewhere out there, one tiny tree is probably still recovering from having thirteen people underneath it.

Until the next expedition.

Shakespeare on 4 High