The Arabian camel is a single-humped dromedary with a sharp, bony spine that it is exceptionally unpleasant to sit on. That accounts for my position on camels.

As for why camels do not like me, I can only speculate. It might have to do with how the camels perceive the discrepancy between their own load-bearing capacity and how I look to them. Smart animals.

Since the arrival of the hard-top road, the lorry, and the 4WD, the camel is no longer part of the Emirates’ transportation system. Still, the Emiratis, much to their credit, do not willingly abandon their heritage. Some 300 000 camels are kept, mostly for racing, a sport the Gulf Arabs revel in.

As with horses, camel racing is all about retaining control without burdening the animal with too much weight. For this reason, the camel jockey of yesteryear was a good deal younger than one might care to remember.

Luckily, the last twenty years have seen significant modernization to the sport. Since 2002, the age limit for camel jockeys in the Emirates was raised to 15 years. Nowadays, however, camels are increasingly jockeyed by robots.

It is an odd meeting between high-tech and low-tech to see camel races with a robot jockey at the reins, remote-controlled by an overjoyed Emirati racing alongside the camel from the comfort of a car.

The Emiratis were also happy about their dunes, but for a different reason; one that had little to do with tranquillity.

Most Emiratis are what one might call regular, highly likeable people leading ordinary lives, far removed from the Oil Sheikh stereotype. But ‘most’ is not ‘all’, and the reputation of the Gulf Arab has not been conjured out of thin air.

The density of young males, ostensibly unburdened by fiscal woes, is high. The poorer among these will by default have a Rolex Submariner shining from their wrist—the more well-to-do something more respectable, such as an Audemars Piguet or a Patek Philippe.

Additionally, wealth is expressed through cars. The well-to-do Emirati likes their sports cars, and as with the timepieces, those of middling resources typically settle for some flavour of Porsche. Proper wealth, however, is more appropriately expressed through a Bugatti, a Maybach or a Koenigsegg of an unapologetic colour.

But the Emirati has a utilitarian streak to him and likes to keep an offroad vehicle, too. Unlike the European SUV-owner, who drives his car as if it was made of fine crystal, the Emirati has no need for paved surfaces.

‘Dune bashing’ is to Emiratis what skiing is to Norwegians; to those unfamiliar with the expression ‘dune bashing’, it is descriptive of a wide range of irresponsible driving malpractices in the desert.

At first, this was unusual to me. Still, after a time, I concluded that it would be wrong to dismiss this form of recreation purely based on its verifiable insanity.

Instead, I joined the Emiratis in their regard for sand driving and their disregard for their insurance companies.