Participants laud HHC role in making Camel Trek easy

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

The participants of the 6th edition of the Camel Trek have showed great admiration towards the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Heritage Centre (HHC) to give them the opportunity of a lifetime experience.

The expedition to cross the desert and complete the 700-km journey was started on Dec.4 from Mender Al Aslab desert, Abu Dhabi and during a night stopover at Bugrain Desert in Abu Dhabi, the participants have shared their experience of so far with a group of selected local media.

The 6th edition of the annual Camel Trek has been organized by the HHC to give an opportunity of unique desert experience and learn the old ways of the Bedouins. The journey also connects them with nature, in addition to developing ties of friendship and cooperation among the participants. This year a total of 18 trekkers are participating including nine Emiratis — 2 kids aged 5-years and 7-years — and nine expatriates from Germany, China, UK, Albania and France.

Talking to the Gulf Today, trekkers have lauded the efforts of the HHC management and appreciated the role of its Abdullah Hamdan Bin Dalmouk, CEO HHC to extend extraordinary efforts from training to logistics and food to all kind of hospitality and made this 14-day journey comfortable.

Abdullah Hamdan Bin Dalmouk, CEO of the HHC and leading the trekkers told Gulf Today that “We are blessed to achieve this milestone with great enthusiasm. This is sixth year we are organising the Camel Trek and every year we are improving our overall arrangements more professionally as we learned a lot. This year we brought with us two kids and achieve another milestone. We used to listen our elders that they rode camels when they were young kids and cross the desert and now we have kids with all the satisfactory arrangements.

“The other thing which makes this year’s trek more interesting is that we have more Emirates than before. Even then we are open for all nationalities but we want more local people to join this initiative as it is local and they have to be linked with their heritage.

Regarding the future plans of Camel Trek he said next year it will be associated with Expo 2020 and made arrangements to get the opportunity to show the world about their heritage initiative.

“The ultimate goal is to organize a Camel Trek to reach Saudi Arabia and perform Hajj to travel all the way to Makkah as our ancestors used to do this,” he said.

Xiaozhe Huo from China has been residing in Dubai since January 2015 said that “I have seen the power of the nature in the desert from very close and the overall experience was great. I have been riding a beautiful camel name ‘H’ and the ride was smooth to feel luckiest girl to have this particular camel.

“The trek was not easy as from the day one we were facing difficulties like tiredness, camel rides but the arrangements and the support by the HHC were always there to help us especially those who had no experience of long camel rides. One has to be fit and strong enough to endeavor such experience,” she added.

However, it was an amazing experience for Maryam Mohammed, an Emirati woman and a resident of Dubai. “The most amazing of this trek was people from different countries and enjoying the experience as a big family. Being an Emirati it was pleasure and great opportunity to show the world about our culture, tradition and heritage as well as the life our ancestors lived,” she said.

“In the first half of the 2-week journey, we saw the beautiful but most amazing dunes of Empty Quarters. This also help us to distance ourselves from the busy city life and being close to the nature and recharge ourselves,” she said.

Furthermore Hamdan Muhammad Hilal, is the youngest Emirati 5 years old boy and has been participant along with his elder family member who is also the oldest trekker in the sixth edition of Camel Trek.

He used to complete daily 50 km trek on the camel back while the elders in the group touching daily 90-km averagely.

However, Shirley Wilkinson, Indian born British expat living in the UAE for a long time. She is an artist by profession and had also tried to be part of the last edition of the Camel Trek but not got the chance. “We are thankful of the HHC to organizing the Camel Trek for the last over five years and give us the opportunity to be part of this journey to experience life in the desert.