Salmiya

It’s camping time. Kuwaitis love camping in the desert. Eventually, they'll come back to their roots, the simple life in tents. Of course, with satellite dishes, diesel generators, go-carts. The nights are still chilly but the sun is warming-up the desert quickly. When, for a couple of days only, flowers are blooming and spread sweet and heavy flavors, bees and bumble-bees, locusts (no, that kind of insect is not simply a grasshopper), large black beetles, and … lizards, of course, have a short season. The variety of small animals is surprising. In a couple of weeks only, in July and August, this part of the desert will be more or less abiotic. Scorching winds from the nearby Iraqi deserts in the northwest and temperatures soaring to more than 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) will definitely prevent the ‘normal’ human, weak and spoiled, from leaving the heavily air-conditioned four-wheel-drive jeep when driving through the dusty and hazy furnace of one of the hottest spots on earth. But ...

A great spectacle on Thursday afternoons, Kuwait’s camel race. When it was made public that the boys were usually kidnapped from Pakistan, 'robots' suddenly replaced them as jockeys all over the Emirates of the Gulf.

Belonging to the Arabian Shelf in the Western part of the Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait is extremely flat. It is mainly made of sand of sediments which once were covered by the sea. In fact, the area is a sedimentary coastal plain with no real mountains or rivers. The only prominent natural feature in the country is the escarpment of Jal Az Zor which runs about 60 kilometers along the North shore of Kuwait Bay. To the North and Northwest, the desert extends up to the Iraqi border without any uprisings. The sand- and limestone cliffs of Jal Az Zor may rise up to 130 meters. Its sedimentary origin can easily be seen from the exposed strata and further proof may be marine fossils that can be found there. The gully systems along the escarpment are gradually being eroded by wind and rainfall and slowly being filled in by sand. The beauty of the desert in this part of Kuwait and its peaceful atmosphere can be soaked in particular in wintertime and spring.