Where can I start- what a night!
super duper!
lets start right at the beginning.
we deflated and moved to the start of the track and fixed our flags. Right after the start I had a refusal! Mmmm I thought... not such a great beginning.
we then stopped at a great point overlooking the iftat bowl and could see many more clubs all around.
gaurav bhai, rahimbhai ,Emmanuel, shamil all tried their hand successfully to climb thee bowl.
The sheer number of suvs climbing the bowl at the same time was incredible.
the site where we had camped-so to speak- was a hot bed of sand dunes and up and downs and the number of suvs going around here was unbelievable. At one point it looked like the Dubai Sharjah highway peak hour- seriously.
it really was a wonder that there were no accidents.
we broke the fast and as usually the food spread was just super- chick peas Sunday, biriyani varieties, aloo & chicken sandwich, chicken bites, meat, and emmanuel’s sweets and many more.
I thought I ate very little but 1/2 hour later I was so full I wanted to just lie down and take a nap.
then the drama started as we were getting ready to leave.
shamil had a pop out at the foothills of the iftarbowl. Not to be outdone my left front was flat and I could not inflate it.
thankfully asif bhai, Emmanuel and Aaquil helped me ( meaning they did all the work- as I had no clue of what to do- finding the leak from inside rim, jacking up the car and inflating. Thankfully it worked.
so after some folks left for the exit gaurav bhai as lead and asif bhai followed by Mirza and yours truly with rahimbhai as sweep we started the drive.
man o man o man- was it exciting. I was driving near blind and having the lights on low beam did not help- must have been dreaming when gaurav bhai told us on the radio to switch to high beam-
anyway what is a drive without getting stuck. I did that so many times. Gaurav bhai,asif bhai and rahimbhai bhai were patient and helped me self extricate with constant tips and a shed load of shovelling sand by them/ thanks a lot.
the left right twisting the wheel just doubled my biceps in that drive.
it was awesome to drive at night and pretty scary- had atleast 3 hard lands after creating and a hard hit of smaller dune I did not see as I came down off one.
my fjc earned its money last night.
close to the end a shovel in rahimbhai’S suv got loose - probably the number of time he took it out to help me- and smacked his daughter’s head. Thankfully no major injury.
we exited the desert but not without one final hard drop after a crest right near the exit.
aaquil had joined me as passenger and must still be having nightmares of why he joined me. But boy, that man knows his cars. He was telling me so much about my fjc that I had no idea. Thanks a lot buddy.
i am the type of guy who gets into the car starts it and point to where I go and then get lost in my thoughts. My wife says that red lights for me is just a suggestion to consider if I want to stop as apparently I sometimes ignore them.
these drives with this group is teaching me so much I wish I could join on the drives each
anyway, super night. I reached home by 2 am.
i look forward to the next drive- probably July for me.
thanks again everybody for such a memorable night