Liwa Oasis, United Arab Emirates
Somewhere in the process of watching various travel videos back in the fall of 2016, I stumbled upon a place called the Liwa Oasis. Liwa is part of the Rub’ al Khali (Empty Quarters), the largest contiguous sand dunes/desert in the world. It takes up a huge portion of the Arabian Peninsula. The travel videos I saw didn’t quite do the place justice so I had to see it in person just how vast this area of sand dunes really is. Was able to get a cheap flight deal from Boston to Dubai, flying Swiss Air on way there via Zurich (Swiss Lounge was amazing; showered, full breakfast, entire whiskey bar and they have an outdoor observation deck!) and Air Canada on way back. Flying wasn’t so bad at all when you have Star Alliance Gold status. As you can see on the map, the town of Liwa isn’t really close to anything, which resulted me in renting a car in Abu Dhabi and taking the 3-hour drive into the desert in the direction of Saudi Arabia. Needless to say, I got lost for an hour or so on the roads due to me not having a working map and trying to read the non-existent highway signs. Eventually after 4 hours, I was able to make my way there to the village of Liwa right before sunset, seeing some amazing scenery along the way of the desert dunes and also making a pit stop at a camel farm to see some of them in action.
The camel farm didn’t disappoint, as there were so many of them corralled up in addition to seeing many groups of local Bedouins/trainers taking caravans of camels for rides. I was able to get right next to these camels, which was great.
Once I arrived in the town of Liwa, I started to drive to the Moreeb Dune, another 30 minutes or so towards the middle of nowhere. This dune is one of the tallest in the world, at over 300 meters and as steep as a 50 degree incline! They host many car drag races up the dune which is how it’s made a name for itself. Driving along the winding roads with literally nothing around you besides sand dunes was amazing, hard to describe the feeling as you really don’t feel like you’re on earth.
The hotel I stayed at (Liwa Hotel) was perched on a high dune/overlook itself of the area. It provided some great views from both my room and also the hotel grounds, almost like a resort, complete with pools, restaurants and lounge area.
There was a stray cat at the hotel and during dinner in the evening it actually took a piece of my bread where I was seated outside. Took it up jumping up on my table and then scurried away. I was able to see the same cat the next day and was able to stick my camera in front of him to try and snap a few photos. Turns out I was able to get a few gems. Must be nice for the cat to just live around the hotel grounds feeding off tourist’s dinners.
Liwa Oasis Photos
