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Sorry guys, I am not creative or talkative these days, due to the situation. Moved in 2017 to the UAE. First 2 years I had no car, rented a Yaris when needed and later I used Udrive or Ekar. Not being a daily driver due to work, don’t need to drive to work, they are picking me up and dropping off home for duty. I like sportcars, thats my thing. When I rented a Mustang and they flashed me after 10 minutes, I was sure it will not be a sportcar in Dubai for me. Looking for a car that I could utilize as much as possible, so I ended up with a 4 x 4. A choice of practicality. Friends took me out to the desert, I came home with a very big smile and big eyes like a kid. My fiancé that time asked me, wow what happened? You really look amazed/ happy! That was the moment I start searching for a club, and here I am.

I grew up in shops among cars and engines being rebuilt, restored and repaired. My dad made off-road cars for the Baja 1000 and Baja 500 races and also modified Jeeps and other cars. I have back home different cars and pickups so obviously I've always loved cars, I've been offroading all my life on sand, rocks and mud so when I arrived to the UAE I bought a jeep and joined carnity to learn how to do it in this terrain since deserts are way different back home.

As we are all 'grounded' for the next weeks, e-learning seems to be the only option around to improve off road skills. We have a great series of 'what went wrong' videos already posted on Carnity and wondered if there are recommendations from anyone of 'must see' tutorials to increase learnings before we get back out on the sand? Would be great to create a sort of bibliography of excellent content. Thanks See you (nowhere as) soon (as I would like) in the sand

Fond of long drives in home country and explore mother nature. In UAE, after joining Carnity, gives good platform to the person kind of me to explore mother nature, play with Sand, away from concrete jungle, team work, endless leaning opportunities.....all possible with with off-road drives!! This is unique happiness, you can't buy

I'll probably fly a few flights myself on my PC ( you need one of those for a proper flight sim ) Good stuff mate. Last console I had was also the PS2 but I only ever played GT or Tekken on it. Recently I discovered how to play PS2 games on my PC via a PS2 emulator so I'm good

I bought myself a ps4, last console I had was a ps2. Somebody else at home is now “accidentally” walking in front of the tv. 🧘🏻‍♂️😑

@Dale Panganiban - Fabrication, @Anish S @J J, @Nacho, @Jose Martin, @sebin, @Bibin Tom, @Tbone, @sheri, @Magellan, @Sajithsas, @Jolly Abraham, @Jun Zamora, @Pickey Singh, @Gregory Perkin Due to the current ongoing COVID-19 situation, with clear advice from the UAE government to stay at home at all times, we are canceling this off-road drive. I hope this gives time to desert to heal itself, so we can appreciate the nature and virgin dunes after this COVID-19 situation normalizes. Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

FUNK IT! Ok sorry for the cheap clickbait, but this is how I'm killing time during the lock down, and since there isn't much going on here any ways. Thought why not share it, fresh off the press! Enjoy. Use headphones or decent speakers for maximum funkness! Don't forget to like, share, subscribe you know the usual BS

Really nice, good to see making the best use of lock down.

P.S : Mrs said you can have the ink refilled now for 35 dhs through these juggard office supply and stationary shops

Oh stupid me! I've had this exact printer in my house for the last 3 weeks and didn't even notice it. The Epson L3150 the Mrs brought this over from her office when they started working from home. They had this in her office for about a year now with daily office use this is the level in the ink tanks now

Not much you can really use for this kind of Sandy desert. Which would actually be a good idea to shoot a series of video tutorials about driving in the desert. Professionally shot and edited. When things get back to normal ofcourse

Flight simulator 😂😷😁

I hear ya man. I know the airline industry is one of the hit hardest in this situation along with other tourist and travel related industries. All my Safari buds also have been sitting at home for almost a month now. Future is unpredictable and life as we know it is on hold. But hang in there and keep your spirits up. Look at it as a time to stop from ones busy life and smell the flowers. Learn a new skill you've always wanted to but never had the time. Start or finish DIY projects. Fly a few virtual long hail flights Me personally have gotten back to my music production after 2 years. Nothing kills time better than sitting in front of your computer and jammin' while making some tunes for hours! Anyways as long as you have your health and family. It's not that bad. A lot of people right now are doing a lot worse and would kill to be in the position we are right now. Cheers

Thank you @Dale Panganiban - Fabrication, @Shiju Manuel, @Wrangeld, @Nitin Mohan, @siddharth maheshwari, @Rizwanm2, @sertac, @sheri, @Mels Wolf and @Chirag S. For you heartfelt wishes.

@Vanessa8580, @Mohammed Osama @Nivin @Sherif Hamed @Zed @Denizzalbayrak @Shahid Mehmood @asifk @siddharth maheshwari @Nizam Deen @George Francis@MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ Due to the current ongoing COVID-19 situation, with clear advice from the UAE government to stay at home at all times, we are canceling this off-road drive. I hope this gives time to the desert to heal itself, so we can appreciate the nature and virgin dunes after this COVID-19 situation normalizes. Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

@Chaitanya D, @Emad Malaeb, @Rinelle Sanaani, @Kalahari, @Pancho, @Amory, @Mels Wolf, @Michael sammy, @Shamil, @Jorge Stepniak Felippe, @Tbone, @Jamy B., @Nivin, @Srikumar, @Rizwanm2, @Mostafa Taha, @Ale Vallecchi, @Jeffrey Osito Pilgreen, @Adam Marston, @Jas Gajaria, @Wrangeld, @Denizzalbayrak, @Roshan Abraham, @Shahab Khan, @Brette, @Febin Frederic, @tjsingh, @Martin. Due to the current ongoing COVID-19 situation, with clear advice from the UAE government to stay at home at all times, we are canceling this off-road drive. I hope this gives time to desert to heal itself, so we can appreciate the nature and virgin dunes after this COVID-19 situation normalizes. Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

@Melenany @Kalahari @Remco Snoek @Pancho @Chaitanya D @Colin Jordan @Cara Jordan @paolo dassi @Hariharan @Shiju Manuel @Jamy B. @Anvar Sadath Bekal @Lorenzo Candelpergher @Shamil @Javier M @Mohammed Osama Due to the current ongoing COVID-19 situation, with clear advice from the UAE government to stay at home at all times, we are canceling this off-road drive. I hope this gives time to the desert to heal itself, so we can appreciate the nature and virgin dunes after this COVID-19 situation normalizes. Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Uglier than a half grown bat 😂 - and ours was flourescent green: so we NEVER lost it in the car park. Funny moment in that car was being caught for speding on the way to Paris. Why funny - the Policeman told me I had been clocked at 174kph. I could not stop laughing because the car was supposed to max out at 170. I was going downhill so maybe ... I appealed the decision based on the quoted speed of the specification on the car (and that they could not prove corect callibration of the gun that morning) and that they were only stopping Dutch registered cars. It only took a year and half, but the fine got reveresed, even though I had told them I was prepared to admit to speeding at 160!

I've heard same thing about the Multipla from other ex-owners. Ugly as a halfgrown bat, but very practical and comfortable.

I have always loved driving. It was the thing i most wanted to do from an early age, sitting behind my dad in the car pretending. I got my driving licence within 5 weeks of my 17th birthday (the age a licence was allowed in the UK) but had been driving for years before that. On motrobikes, or 'borrowing' my parents' cars when they left them at home. Perhaps I was the original inspiration for Ferris Bueller? Take a look at my car history, you'll see that I have had a lot of vehicles, normally just one at a time but sometimes as many as 4. None of these was new, some were classics in the making, some I knew were already classics, but all of them had character. A day driving through the Negev desert with friends got me hooked on the possibilities of offroading. We spent a day in a few jeeps just crossing the empty desert. Nothing extreme, just a day of cruising through wadis and valleys and crossing otherwise unreachable places (if you were there with another sort of vehicle). It took me another few years until I was able to convert my wish into a vehicle. I had made sure my (then) wife had a wonderful car for our growing family, I had a TR6 that was my first passion and business was good. One day I was invited to a corporate fun day which involved a number of 4x4 treats, including blind jeep driving. There was also a 4x4 course at the end the day. That was the clincher and within a month I treated myself to a 2nd hand diesel SWB Nissan Patrol. It was officially a work car, so was kitted out with Leather seats and all mod cons. My wife organized for me to go on a full day 4x4 driving course, which was brilliant and exciting and massive fun in SJ413s and Land Rovers and that was it. I was determined to get off road. I also joined the 4x4 club and as a result spent one day every weekend after that for around a year taking my car and some giggling girls strapped into their child seats through muddy tracks and water filled paths mud plugging - as it's called in the UK. My Patrol was cleaned meticulously after every trip. It was all part of the fun, seeing the mud drain away leaving my jeep clean on the street each week. Life has a strange way of teaching us lessons, because just as I bought my next 'toy' (my Yamaha GS1A motorcycle) I got offered a job in the Netherlands. The toys did not come with. From having pretty much my dream garage (the family car was a V6 Citroen XM with all the Bells and Whistles), all the cars were sold and I ended up living in the Netherlands with a Honda Motorbike and a Fiat Multipla (please, please stop laughing, it's a great car). Roll on 20 years, a divorce and two global financial meltdowns and a redundancy later which drained the bank account, I end up in Dubai with my wonderful new wife. Off roading was high on my list of things that I wanted to do again in coming here. Problem was that this was new to my new wife. When we spoke about a car for her here in Dubai, she was talking about a small city runaround, maybe a nice sedan. We went to see quite a few cars, exotic or otherwise, but none of them fit the bill. Then one day, our TJ was advertised. With some trepidation I took my darling wife out and let her know on the way that our outing was to test drive a Jeep [that I have to admit, I had test driven a few days earlier to check it was everything promised]. Within 10 minutes of sitting behind the wheel, she was hooked on the car. Next challenge was to identify an opportunity for off roading and after a bit of research it was clear that an organization called Carnity was offering the easiest way to try out desert driving. The rest, as they say is history. I knew I would love it, but was a little worried that my passion might not be shared. I should not have worried. Not only is this now my weekly fix to clear my head from the stresses of my working week, it's a shared hobby so there's never a question of having to choose between our being together and my hobby on my day off. Now the biggest challenge is getting behind the wheel as much as I want. A very small price to pay for having found my way back into my natural environment - high up, behind the wheel of a 4x4. See you soon in the sand.

Totally disagree.

I will bust that myth. Just give me 2 more years

That's a lie! 25 year old Jeeps is a myth They've all turned to rust by now

From childhood I have been more or less an indoor person. My first offroading experience was the GNFD 2012 in Liwa. It was a fantastic experience to see the vastness of the desert. After that I did the GNFD 2013 in Lisalli. It was a real struggle through some of the technical dunes and it turned me off from offroading. Then in Jan 2017 I received a notification from Carnity about an Absolute Newbie drive in Maliha. I had a rough week at home and office, and just wanted to get away. That's when I met Gaurav and Rahim Bhai for the first time. That drive showed me how beautiful nature is, if we are willing to step out of our comfort zone. The two of them not just became off-road friends but brothers for life. They were there for me when I had an incident on my second drive and ensured that I reached home safely. It's been 3 years and I have been out with the Carnity family every weekend. Drives for me these days are just to meet everyone, chat, have karak tea and ofcourse have Aloo Parathas

For me it all started 11 years back when after my fourth desert safari I saw a bunch of Jeep Wranglers and realized people have clubs and can venture out on their own. I had a Toyota Echo at the time and with a greed of saving around 45 minutes by doing a little desert stretch. I almost made it once, but with a stuck situation I decoded to read, some clubs at the time had awesome posts and was good for 6 months read. But just reading was not going to be sufficient, I needed some hands on experience. My wife had a Mitsubishi Outlander AWD, I had my first mountain drive in that and soon realized how important a proper offroad vehicle was. At this point I sold my Toyota Echo and went for a Jeep Commander 5.7 Hemi. It was just to get some experience and save my 45 minutes on that Sharjah to Dubai stretch. With my holiday cancelled by my office and no family in the house, I used to do up to 4 desert drives a week for 4 weeks. By now unknowingly I had been addicted to offroading. Desert had become my best friend and with the measures put in place by Sharjah police my saving 45 minutes was short lived. It's been since that I have not looked back and been around the desert. Honestly my love of the desert has survived, but not to push my boundaries to discover what I can or cannot do. My passion is to make more like minded friends on the way I can teach and learn from to have a safe passage through our beloved terrain.

Though I am still one of the most Newbies with only 1 and a half rides, I have realized this is what I have been looking for since 2010, when I was 24 and I was living in Chile as an exchange student. A group of crazy friends and I decide that it would be great to buy an old VW Kombi and fix it to fit 9 of us to hit the roads of South America from Chile down to Tierra del Fuego, and up again until Rio. The truth is we only made half of the way, and the van broke in the middle of the Argentinian Pampa, but the previous unbeaten paths were amazing. So here I am, in Dubai with a small Pajero and my wife, who was one of those adventurous friends, joining (still not bored) to every weekend trip.

Back in Belgium I’ve always been a bit of an outdoors person. Grew up in a small town so we only had few friends and spent days fixing our bikes and playing in the woods. I’ve always had this dream of exploring the wild but only after arriving in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and seeing the magnificent deserted areas I became more hungry to explore more and find unspoiled places, seeing farms and meeting locals, but my 4x2 FJ Cruiser forced me to stay on the hard farmer tracks. I’ve left Saudi and went back to Belgium for a while and was happy to be able to get a job in Dubai. I bought a 3 series beemer but after meeting few new friends in the community that went camping often, I realized the fun in Dubai only started off-road so tried to find a 4x4 commuter car which was big enough to take the kids to school but small enough to enjoy in the dunes. Fell in love with my little blue Pajero and found Carnity from searching info about my car and that’s how I ended up here. Wifey later sold our Beemer and bought a LWB Pajero as family / adventure car. And now both addicted off-roaders 🤣

I was helping my friend renovate his house and it was a long drawn out month long process. Everything from the roof to the walls in the 7 bedroom Villa. His elder brother as a thank you took all us for a desert Safari since he would freelance as a guide on the weekend. And that was pretty much it. I told myself this is what I want to do as well. To cut a long story short after years of trials and tribulations and help from another friend I managed to get my foot into that world. I didn't give up never for a second thought I will stop persuing this line of work. Got ridiculed by friends and family as to what stupid line of work I'm trying to get into 2 years I worked for free or very basic pay like 50-100dhs per trip and started from the very bottom as helper then moving up to camp driver cum helper than mean driving as well as helping in loading and off loading the pickup. It was very very tough work but I enjoyed it througly which gained me a lot of respect later on as everybody had seen how I had struggled from the very bottom to the top and they knew I know every aspect of this field so one one could fuck me too. Made some great money and had the time of life because I was lucky the company I got attached too ( I say attached because I never officially joined them because that ways I getting paid freelance per trip money which was as high as 1200dhs per day to the lowest of 650 per day as opposed to a fix salary ) they got a lot of interesting projects like vehicle testings and events. I worked on projects from Toyota,Nissan, peugout, jeep, land rover, Mercedes, hummer, GM just to name a few. So most of my work was this rather than regular desert Safari you see and hear about. Did that mostly during summer and in between such projects and other events, which including a huge secret proper concert with huge stage, lights, pyro, screens fireworkd for Shaggy, UB40, lot of Bollywood stuff so on and so forth. But close to the economic downturn such things got less and less and I started to get bored with just the regular Safari day in and day out. Is when I quit. Then became a weekend warrior just like the rest of you. Then thought it would be a good idea to go out with more people so searching online I came across dubai4x4 one of the few off-road clubs at the time. Then emarat 4x4 which I stayed with till life decided otherwise and I stopped going all toghether. Now maybe when things take a change for the better might get myself another desert ride and start going out again. Maybe.

BTW not applicable for all the civics 😁 in Turkey they are playing with those little things a lot.

I only have the grass in the boot of my Pathy, this guy takes it all too seriously.

Real Green Pajero.