The Grand Camel Prix

Camel racing is touted in most UAE tour guide books as a "must see" experience for any visitor to the country. However, it is next to impossible to get information about it from anywhere. There is no designated website, I couldn't find any blogs or anything that confirmed that anybody had actually ever been to one, let alone information about a scheduled race. My theory is that the people who are actually into camel racing (mostly UAE citizens) don't have much interest in making it a big public spectacle and they figure anybody who should be at the race will generally know when it's supposed to happen. I had made three trips out into the desert to see them, but each time I was disappointed when the workers at the tracks told me they weren't happening that day.

However, the third fruitless trip, I found a printed schedule in Arabic informing me of the race days. So on my fourth visit I finally saw the races, which kick off early in the morning on weekdays, and a glorious spectacle it was.

They line the camels up:

And off they go:

Now it used to be that they had small children be the camel jockeys, usually imported from some low income south Asian country or another (Bangladesh for example). However, this inhumane practice has been replaced by robot jockeys, which are just as awesome as the name implies. They're typically small boxes with a little whip that smacks the camel's hide:

Of course, the robot must be controlled via remote, which means along side the entire dirt track there is a paved road, where a fleet of SUVs follow alongside the race with all the owners, trainers, video crews, and general camel papparazzi. Which itself is a spectacle almost as fun to watch as the camel race itself. Because the track is too big to see the majority of the race (there's a 4 km track and an 8 km track, or 2.5 and 5 miles), the video crews in the cars film the race for the excited crowd of spectators. Meanwhile an announcer, who I can only assume is the Dubai version of Marv Albert, narrates the race excitedly. Afterwards the owners all jump out of their cars and hurriedly congratulate each other on the results (the most important victory went, to nobody's surprise, to the Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan).

Then the next race begins, and at some point while the next heat is down at the far end of the track where no one can see them, the winners, adorned with flags and some kind of orange paint, are paraded out to everyone's applause:

The season is almost over for camel racing, but the nice thing about visiting the track is that on almost any morning, you can go see the camels doing their training and really get up close and personal with them.

Occasionally, you can even challenge them to a race of your own.

Coming soon to a track near you: Man v. Camel.

Curtis Goes Fashionista, Part 2

On a previous posting I thrust myself into the hitherto unexplored world of fashion: http://curtcannon.blogspot.com/2010/03/curtis-goes-fashionista.html

By way of update, I would like to break the good news that, seven months after going public with the yellow pants purchase, I have gained my first convert to the world of yellow skinny pants. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm round of applause for Bekah Ellsworth. Upon her brief (26 hour) layover in Dubai she could not resist purchasing the same "Original Military First Men's Jeans" that I had. Though, in the words of Will Smith, the difference between she and I is she makes this look good. For more details, you can visit her two postings on Dubai at:
http://chilebek.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/hello-dubai-a-k-a-the-tale-of-two-cities/
http://chilebek.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/dubai-top-ten-a-k-a-addendum/

For those of you who need to cool down a bit after witnessing the collective fireball of hotness which is encompassed in the prior four pictures, fear not, I offer some relief as we also managed to capture a more chill side of the Dubizz:

Why Can't I Quit You?

I'm normally adverse to discussing my relationship issues on my blog. There's either too much drama or too little. Plus talking about my dating life can get tricky; people's feelings get hurt. Some day I will write my memoirs on the topic elsewhere. It'll be called "Sitting to the Left of Awkward." I have a knack for getting myself into awkward situations when it comes to dating. I've come to the conclusion that such situations should be embraced.

However, there's one relationship that I feel I need to be discussed openly, mostly because until recently it has never gotten awkward.

This isn't a relationship with a girl. No. This is a much more constant companion. One that gives it all and never takes anything. One that never complains or cancels. One that doesn't fade out when you try and push things to a new level nor freak out when you don't. One that looks good in the morning and great in the evening, with no need of makeup or touching up. One that supports me in my late nights and stands by me when the rest of the world is laughing. I'm speaking, of course, of the Real Thing: Coca-cola.

Good ole Coke has been with me through thick and thin and never failed to come through when it counted. I have savored it, cherished it, and loved it with all my heart. It has picked me up when I felt down and loved me when I felt lonely. As the following collection shows, it has been with me in literally every corner of the globe.

I should be a model for Coke. And no, in no way do I find it pathetic that in all of these pictures it's me and Coke, and not me and "some hot girl with whom I am in a relationship." This is a true love affair that has transcended time and place.

Not that I was addicted. I have taken breaks from Coke and had no noticeable impact on my body. I once stopped drinking soda altogether for 2 months, and kept a six pack of Vanilla Coke under my desk just to prove that I could do it even when it was staring me in the face. I proved two points by doing that: the first being that I could go without, and the second being that the only thing better than an ice cold Coke is an ice cold Coke when you haven't had one in two months.

However, recently I have had to grips with the fact that this is, literally, an incredibly unhealthy relationship. As I get older my metabolism is slowly turning the dial down. This became painfully obvious about ten months ago when I started receiving a strange question, one that I haven't ever heard in my entire life.

"Curtis, have you gained weight?"

The first three times it was sort of humiliating because it was a question that came from attractive females. Nevertheless I sort of found it a little flattering that they would notice. Then, however, I started having other people ask. Fat people. A real wake up call came when a very large Saudi man with whom I had been working said to me after not seeing me for a week, "Curtis, you are looking fat. You've been in Saudi Arabia too long."

All of this was shocking in that I didn't think such comments and questions were allowed. I NEVER ask people if they've put on weight. Taboo. Still, I had to reckon with the fact that it was true. I had in fact put on about 25 pounds in 4 months since I started visiting Saudi Arabia.

This caused a bit of an existential crisis. How could I leave my beloved Coke without betraying all that I stood for? I might as well renounce my citizenship. It would be like cheating on an old lover. Nevertheless, I had to face the music. I had to confront the fact that with all of these pictures of myself drinking Coke, I might indeed become a Coke advertisement, but not of the kind I had originally wanted to be:

So I switched. On April 19, 2010 I became a Diet Coke person.

It was traumatic. I couldn't believe it the first time I heard myself order one. People told me condescendingly that things would work out. "Give it a few weeks, Curtis, and you won't ever want to go back to regular Coke." Sort of like when you go through a break up and people spill out cliches about how there's "someone special out there for you" and other fishes in sea (why would I want a fish anyway?). However, they were wrong. I still maintain that the only thing better than a Coke is a Coke when you've been awhile without.

Now perhaps after 6 months it is premature to pass judgment. They say that the time it takes to get over a relationship is half the time that the relationship lasted, which means I won't be able to truly distance myself from Coke until the year 2024. Still, after 6 months I can only say that I have grown accustomed to the Diet drinks, but it is a cold dispassionate relationship in which there is no love. We stay together because I like the cold fizzy feeling it creates in my mouth, but I feel no loyalty, no passion, no excitement in my stomach when I see the logo. I don't even care which Diet drink it is. To me they're all kind of the same.

I mean, they're ok. The one upside is that they are all equally unsatisfying. Diet Coke, Coke Lite, Coke Zero, even Diet Pepsi (I won't touch the regular stuff). But it's like making out with someone you don't care about in an attempt to mend your broken heart. It's sort of fun while it lasts but ultimately leaves you feeling empty with a funky aftertaste in your mouth.

Truth is, I'm still in love with Coke. Every now and then I go back and pay it a visit. And it's SOOOO good.

The other night, while up late working, I discovered at the restaurant in my compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, tha tthey serve Coke floats. I had to have one. And yes, ironically, that is a really really fat man in the background of this picture:

And so I struggle to redefine this new relationship. We can't go back to just being friends. We've progressed way beyond that. And even though I have started a new open relationship with its ugly cousins, my heart still lies with regular Coke. So I must declare it publicly.

"Coke, I love you. Even though we are sort of divorced, you will always have my heart."

Cooling Off, Dubai Style (Part 2)

Oftentimes the best way to escape the heat in Dubai is to just leave. Most people get out of "Dodgebai" (ok it's a stretch but I make it a habit to play with my city's name as much as possible) for at least part of the hot summer, which lasts from end of April to around the middle of October. Usually that means heading to Europe or the States to really actually get out.

Counterintuitively, you can also head south, to southern Oman. There is a slice of the Arabian peninsula which actually gets part of the southwest monsoon which gets India. This creates a rainy season which lasts about 2 months from July to September, which turns everything lush and green. Of course, 30 kilometers inland the rain peters out and it is desert like the rest of the Arabian peninsula. But for the lucky peeps living by the sea, it's the best time of year. We were there in late July, which is fairly early in the green season. By end of August and early September it's probably amazing.

For those of you who are Mormon or into Mormon things, you'll also be interested to know that Book of Mormon scholars reckon this might be the "Land of Bountiful" spoken of in 1 Nephi 17. For those of you who aren't Mormon or into Mormon things, there is a story in the beginning of the Book of Mormon about a man named Lehi and his family who leave Jerusalem, travel through the desert for 8 years, then come to a Land of Bountiful on the coast, where they build a boat and sail to a distant "promised land." It was called the Land of Bountiful because it had much fruit. We enjoyed this fruit.

Here is a sheltered inlet fom the ocean where one scholar speculated that Father Lehi's ship might have set sail from. I don't know how accurate this is and am generally skeptical of such claims to places being "The Place" where something happened. It was 2600 years ago! But it was still a cool place and a good opportunity for some spiritual reflection.

We also found some old forts which, according to our guidebook, have no particular signifance. Tim, for some reason, decided that Oman would be a good place to don his green shoes (see my post about Dubai fashion); in combination with his red beard he looked like a giant Aussie leprechaun.

In any case, what's actually more interesting is what is happening here today. You know there's something wrong when you get excited about going someplace that's damp, rainy, and 40 degrees cooler than your current location. But I was absolutely thrilled to get out of Dubai for the weekend. And I'm not the only one who relished the rain. Despite the fact that it was a misty rain the entire time I was there, everybody seemed to be out. Picknickers everywhere, on the side of the road, on the beach, up the mountains. Just out in their lawn chairs hanging out... in the rain. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the picnics.

We did, however, stumble across what turned out to be the party of the year in Oman. It was the 40th anniversary of Sultan Qaboos (the ruler of Oman) to the throne. We noticed they were blocking off the streets so we got out to check out what was going on, next thing we know there's just masses of people marching in a huge parade, waving Omani flags and pictures of the Sultan.

Men waving swords, chanting and dancing.

The women were out in droves too, mostly covered up by the niqab but still singing as cheerily as everyone else.

One cute part of the parade was a pack of younger girls dressed in red, green, and white (the colors of the flag). Behind them you can see one interesting sign was one with large pink Arabic script that said, "Thank you dear Sultan for your support for the Omani woman and her improvement."

It was fun, and we could have made it look quite scary:

Fortunately Omanis are super nice and down to earth and a lot of fun to hang out with in the rain. This turned out to be a great day, and we even got some great pictures of ourselves. See if you can play a little "Where's Curtis" in this picture...

Tim the giant leprechaun stood out from the crowd a little more.

Below was the best shot of the day I think. You have the two Pakistani men in the foreground holding hands (public displays of affection between men are quite common in this region and are not an indicator of sexual orientation). Then you have the marching Omani patriots and then in the corner, our favorite Australian leprechaun, trying to blend in.

We also made it up into the mountains, where we found some "sink holes," which are deep canyons where sometimes the water will create rivers and waterfalls. Again, we were a bit early in the year for the waterfalls, but was still pretty spectacular.

Past the sink holes we got above the clouds and rain, where we both found the end of the greenery, and some pretty cool views. Maybe cliche, but I thought these were both some cool shots of some local tourist women. Our final spot on our little trip was the Mughsayl blow hole, where the waves come in and crash into the rocky shore, which is very porous and so you have these random holes where the water will come crashing in and shoot up, geyser like, with each crashing wave.

The biggest one shoots up to 100 feet in the air. I got a video of some of the smaller ones to give a better sense of how it works. The best geysers are at the end of the video...