At the end of the last Gulf War, I had the opportunity to go to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and various other nations as a civilian. I thought, "Woo hoo! Close to a war zone! Cool! And indeed, although those areas were not staging areas for combat, a truck in front of the one I was in exploded. There were enormous fires, but they were of little consequence to my surroundings because they burned from so far. Too far, for my taste. I wanted to get a little closer.
So, my sponsors drove me to a checkpoint somewhere around Oman, way the hell out in the desert. In fact, there, they would not even tell me for sure *where* we were, and in the desert, there's not a great lot for points of reference. Is this the checkpoint by the big dune by the ugly camel with two humps? Someone made a reference to Yemen, but not seeing any Yemenese flags, I 86'd that possibility.
I understood some Arabic, and was getting a little nervous, as these soldiers were kinda on the serious side. As in they had close relationships with their Kalishnikovs and didn't think twice about training them on someone's face.
[This is what my college ass came for! Military action with the option to say "Check, please!" as soon as it got too spooky, instead of a 4 year commitment and people with thick necks yelling at me!] Anyhow, my sponsors had just taken me out for some desert four wheeling, and I'm quite sure they didn't expect to come across these soldiers. We were sternly turned around, and not having had enough border jumping for the day, my escorts decided to take a long-cut through miles-and-miles-and-miles-and-miles-and-miles of desert. At night.
At some point, we exited our trucks in the middle of freaking nowhere, but leaving the headlamps on, decided to climb the dunes.
At some point, we summited a giant dune, to discover lights coming from below it. Somehow, after all those insane miles of nothingness, we stumbled upon a camp, impossibly lighted with electricity, satellite dishes, and about ten giant camouflage tents. We laid on the dune and watched some form of militia scatter to and fro. The dune was so high that we could talk quietly without them noticing us. At the time, the spying was little more to me than child's play, as I tried to suppress giggles, until my host quite gravely suggested that we might be arrested or shot if we were caught. Still not quite taking it seriously, I watched the camp like one might observe ants working in and out of an anthill.
Really, who could think we were dangerous? We were just, uh...two Emiratis, an American, three Lebanese, and two Iraqis playing in the dunes! But framing that just right, it didn't look so good, especially what with a war and all. Those tents weren't set up for the Al-Habibi family reunion, and we made tracks out of there.
Australia is as peaceful as it gets, I think, but I won't go. I've never been to Australia, but it appears to me that the second you step out your door some creature is waiting to sting you to death or bite off some essential part of your body, or just lurk around making you think there needs to be something like a Wildlife Restraining Order. Those cute Australian accents just don't bridge the gap quite enough to make up for the freakishly deadly animals they produce there.
It's a really good thing I didn't know about Camel Spiders while I was climbing those dunes in the desert. They look way more scary than the soldiers.
[Part of this post excerpted from an email].
So, my sponsors drove me to a checkpoint somewhere around Oman, way the hell out in the desert. In fact, there, they would not even tell me for sure *where* we were, and in the desert, there's not a great lot for points of reference. Is this the checkpoint by the big dune by the ugly camel with two humps? Someone made a reference to Yemen, but not seeing any Yemenese flags, I 86'd that possibility.
I understood some Arabic, and was getting a little nervous, as these soldiers were kinda on the serious side. As in they had close relationships with their Kalishnikovs and didn't think twice about training them on someone's face.
[This is what my college ass came for! Military action with the option to say "Check, please!" as soon as it got too spooky, instead of a 4 year commitment and people with thick necks yelling at me!] Anyhow, my sponsors had just taken me out for some desert four wheeling, and I'm quite sure they didn't expect to come across these soldiers. We were sternly turned around, and not having had enough border jumping for the day, my escorts decided to take a long-cut through miles-and-miles-and-miles-and-miles-and-miles of desert. At night.
At some point, we exited our trucks in the middle of freaking nowhere, but leaving the headlamps on, decided to climb the dunes.
At some point, we summited a giant dune, to discover lights coming from below it. Somehow, after all those insane miles of nothingness, we stumbled upon a camp, impossibly lighted with electricity, satellite dishes, and about ten giant camouflage tents. We laid on the dune and watched some form of militia scatter to and fro. The dune was so high that we could talk quietly without them noticing us. At the time, the spying was little more to me than child's play, as I tried to suppress giggles, until my host quite gravely suggested that we might be arrested or shot if we were caught. Still not quite taking it seriously, I watched the camp like one might observe ants working in and out of an anthill.
Really, who could think we were dangerous? We were just, uh...two Emiratis, an American, three Lebanese, and two Iraqis playing in the dunes! But framing that just right, it didn't look so good, especially what with a war and all. Those tents weren't set up for the Al-Habibi family reunion, and we made tracks out of there.
People? This is a BIRD EATING SPIDER in Cairns, Australia.
It's a really good thing I didn't know about Camel Spiders while I was climbing those dunes in the desert. They look way more scary than the soldiers.
[Part of this post excerpted from an email].
2 comments:
I hate spiders. Therefore I have only one thing to add.
And I quote:
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Oh, and thank you for the future nightmares.
Me, too! What demon thought up a bird eating spider?
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