Camels, camels, camels...

Because of the desert heat, the camel racing circuit runs either very early in the morning or late in the afternoon.  Concerned about the heat still being too intense in the late afternoon, we decided to head to the races early morning.

With little race information available either via the internet or numerous phone calls, we decided to arrive at 7am, halfway between the potential 6:30am and 7:30am start times that had been tossed around.

After almost an hour of driving, we were nervous to walk into the racing stadium to find ourselves the only ones there! Luckily, after a few minutes of watching some camels training on the track, our fantastic driver, Bilal, came running to tell us that he had spoken with some of the camel trainers and had been informed that the races were not actually taking place at the race track that day but along a random road just one street over.  We jumped excitedly into the car and headed over to watch, strangely finding ourselves in a hoard of charging cars rushing down the street honking at their camels.

The honking drivers are actually trying to direct  the remote control "racer" robots perched on the camels' backs.  These robots had replaced child riders a number of years ago but required the remote control operator to be within a certain distance in order to give instructions to the camel.

When we got our of the car, we realized we were still the only tourists and thus gained the attention of the numerous camel trainers and owners who thought we were a hilarious group.  They happily answered all of our questions and even took us into the paddock to see some of the camels up close.

There were about 20 races with 50 camels per race so it felt like there were camels roaming everywhere. Nonetheless, the whole event was remarkably well organized and camels moved quickly from training grounds to the race track and off along the race course with a very short turnaround time.

Camels are adorable when they run.  Unlike horses, camels actually run with the front and back leg on the same side moving at the same time.  This can make for quite an awkward looking run even though they manage to get up to speeds of 40km per hour.  By the end of the race, if they managed not to get distracted and simply stop or turn around and run the wrong way, they have clearly exhausted themselves as they move around slowly with masses of saliva flying out of their panting mouths.

The winning camels here only receive 750 AED but the real prize comes if the owner can sell his camel to the wealthy buyers who are watching as they too race alongside the track in their cars.

Although we got off to a somewhat slow start, the camel races were definitely a winning highlight of Fred and El's visit!