The UAE’s Desert Landscapes Look Empty — Until You Spend Time in Them
From afar, the desert looks almost devoid of features. Just vast expanses of sand that reach the horizon, shining in the sunlight like gold. To a hurried traveler, it might even seem monotonous.
However, if you spend a whole afternoon moving at a slow pace through the sand dunes you will actually start noticing something different. You get to see patterns.
The wind etches tiny wave-like patterns in the sand. Unexpectedly appearing bits of greenery are the result of small plants struggling for survival. Once in a while, a single camel strolls along a high point leaving footprints that the wind will soon get rid of. Desert is more the hidden kind than the shout-it-out one.
Its charm is not glaring. On the contrary, it unveils itself slowly to those who are patient and observant.
MOST people get to see this when they have their first long time outside the town. When you are not surrounded by roads and buildings, the country of Emirates will through a less noisy piece of nature remind you that they around the change, really slowly, time and again, and it is the natural rhythm that is there even before the present day development.
Indeed, it is the juxtaposition of the super-modern metropolis with the timeless desert that makes the area so appealing.
