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Now
that the days are cool and lengthening, many people
living in cities feel drawn to the out-of-doors. To find
a place away from the pollution and noise where the wind
touches your face and your eyes can see far and your
ears hear nothing but the silence of the desert carried
by the warbling song of a bird.
Even though the cities are
growing forever larger and certain areas of the UAE
desert seem full of 4WD’s with tourists, there are still
some places that few people know about where one can be
quite alone to commune with nature.
Some people are
intimidated by the desert and do not dare to go out and
explore by themselves. There are companies that will
take you to places and you will spend an enjoyable day
with a group of friends or strangers, but in my opinion
the desert is best enjoyed in very small groups of
like-minded people. Some people want to hike across hill
and vale as fast as their nikes can carry them. Others
like to explore slowly, their nose to the ground to look
for rocks, fossils, plants or tiny insects. Still others
like to find a nice rock overhang at the edge of a pond
in a wadi and settle down with a book and a beverage. It
is no good to put hikers and readers together; neither
will be happy. So the first step for a great day outdoor
is finding the right companions. Then you can continue
with finding the right place to begin with your
adventure.
The direction to
go is east towards the Hajar mountain range. With many
roads now cutting through what was once a barrier
between the East Coast and the rest of the country, one
can reach almost anywhere by car – and often it dos not
even have to be a 4WD vehicle.
One thing that
must be remembered when making a trip into the desert by
car is to stick to the existing tracks. In the first
place, you are less likely to get into difficulties, and
secondly, it protects the environment. The desert
nowadays is being hit hard and frequently by the rather
destructive behavior of people who do not realize how
fragile is the ecosystem they are visiting. The dunes
and mountains may seem empty, but they are not. There is
a great biodiversity in each of the different habitats.
In the small surface that the Emirates cover, records
have been made of some 700 plant species, 65 species of
reptiles, 31 species of mammals, 360 species of birds
and hundreds of species of insects and new discoveries
are still occurring even now.
I mentioned
above that you can reach almost anywhere by car. But
leaving the car and continuing on foot will show you an
entirely different desert than the one observed from the
confining space of a vehicle.
Where to go?
From Dubai the best places to drive to and then either
explore, relax or hike are:
Wadi Diftah,
wadi Ashwani, wadi Hail in Fujeirah and any of the
smaller wadis that you come across when you drive the
“Hatta loop”. Al Ain is much better placed and has a
choice of dozens of beautiful and interesting place
nearby. From Abu Dhabi the nearby hiking and exploring
sites are all sandy habitats; to reach mountains and
wadis it is a long ride.
I’ll give brief
descriptions of some of the destinations. Precise
directions and further information can be found in
either the “Offroad Explorer” or “The Green guide to the
Emirates”.
Wadi Diftah lies
just left of the Masafi-Fujeirah road. A dirt west of
the village leads to the wadi and the oasis of Diftah.
When visiting this site you must always remember that
plantations are the commercial gardens of the farmers
and should be treated with respect. The people generally
are very kind and hospitable, but that could change if
visitors become a nuisance. Wadi Diftah has water almost
always, though it may take a hike to get to a nice pool.
There is plenty of wild flora and fauna to see for those
who have an eye to spot it. The fallow fields are good
places to find flowering wild plants like the little
carnation Dianthus cyri and the dark red
Geranium mascatense. Along the irrigation channels
in the plantations there are ferns, the yellow stars of
Oxalis corniculata and Physalis major
with its strange five-cornered flowers and lampion
shaped fruits. On the wadi bank one can find orchids (Epipactus
veratrifolia) and even poppies (Papaver dubium)–
not flowers one would expect in a desert! Many different
species of dragonflies and damselflies dart across the
irrigation channels and pools. The large Oman lizard can
be spotted among the rocks of the canyons, while some
very rare skinks have also been found here. Many species
of birds enjoy the greenery and can be watched by the
patient twitcher. Hume’s Wheatear prances on the rocks
in its elegant black-and-white suit, Little Green
Bee-eaters may be spotted on the shrubbery and Palm
doves are ubiquitous.
Another great
place for a day’s outing is Hail, the site of the
erstwhile summer palace of the Fujeirah sheikhs, located
in a wadi to the right of the Masafi-Fujeirah road. The
crumbling buildings of the old palace are still
impressive and worth a close look. If the rains have not
stayed away too long the wadi at the foot of the hill
usually has some good “dipping” pools. The rocky plains
on the left bank used to have some wonderful pictograms
on the rocks. With recent rock quarrying in the area,
these may now be hard to find. Anyway half the fun is in
looking for things, because that is when you come across
unexpected treasures, such as a pretty flowering wild
hibiscus (Hibiscus micranthus) – the tiny white
flowers are only open till mid-morning. On the sides of
the wadibed you can find spectacular bushes of
pink-flowering peas (Taverniera glabra), or
white-flowering bindweed (Convolvulus sp.). I
once spent a happy hour photographing a spectacular
crimson wasp. The wadi holds toads, wadi racers and
interesting insects such as the Giant waterbug and the
Waterscorpion. The latter is often found floating upside
down in a pool with its “sting” just piercing the
surface of the water, but what seems like a sting is
actually a double air pipe, like a snorkel.
Wadi Ashwani is
reached by driving to Siji, to the right of the
Dhaid-Masafi road. After good rains the wadi and lake
near Siji are favourite picnic spots for dozens of
groups of people who don’t dare to venture far. But for
hikers and explorers there are more interesting places
further upstream. The oasis at the end of the track has
nice copper ore dry walls, some fallow fields with large
stands of flowering aloe, and after rains a dense ground
cover of small wildflowers such as the mallow Malva
parviflora, pale-purple Erucaria hispanica
and the bright blue pimpernel Anagallis arvensis.
Gordon’s wildcats and Brandt’s hedgehogs make their home
here, but you have to camp overnight if you want to have
a chance to see them. In the daytime feral donkeys are
the only larger wildlife you’ll meet. A hike along the
wadi is wonderful, especially after rains when the pools
are full and the fields filled with wildflowers, grasses
and butterflies. In good years the ground among the
rocks is covered with small violets (Viola cinerea).
Near one large pool is one of the few places where the
parasitic plant Orobanche cernua can be found. It
lives on the roots of nightshade species, such as the
Desert thorn (Lycium shawii)
An entirely
different kind of outing is one to the sandy habitats of
the country. Unfortunately it is becoming difficult to
find areas that are not destroyed by indiscriminate
offroad driving. This practice is so destructive because
it compacts the sand so that the seeds lying in it
cannot germinate, and it collapses the burrows of
snakes, small rodents and lizards, often killing the
animals in the process. The drivers have no idea what
they are doing, for the plants are as yet invisible and
the burrows are well hidden among the roots of small
bushes.
The area east of
the Madam-Shwaib road is worth exploring, as are the
sandy plains west of the Siji-Ras al Khaymah road.
If you get out
there in the early morning, you can look for the tracks
of the animals that have been active in the night. The
“tripod” tracks of gerbils can be seen everywhere,
sometimes crossing the parallel stripes that form the
track of the poisonous sand viper. The narrow footprints
of foxes are smaller than those of dogs and usually
belong to the Red fox. Small “caterpillar” tracks that
wind their way around bushes are from beetles, while
large four-toed prints with a stripe in between are made
by the feet of a lizard trailing its tail. On the sandy
plains the latter tracks can lead to a flat moon-shaped
entrance to a burrow – the home of the large
Spiny-tailed agame. These plant-eating little dinosaurs
have been living in this area for some 20 million years!
They come out of their burrows to browse and warm up
during some hours in the morning and towards dusk. They
can often be approached quite closely and are wonderful
to see, but one should not be tempted to catch one for a
pet, as they do not do well in captivity!
The desert is
there for all of us to enjoy, but we should take care of
it, since what is destroyed may never come back. | 
