Umm Salal Mohammed Fort and Barzan Tower

We went in search of a 19th-century fort and tower, guided by the vague directions and promise in our guidebook. When we thought we had reached Umm Salal Mohammed, we drove around the streets searching vainly for any sign of a tower, but all the buildings looked new. We finally decided to stop and ask directions.

We found a bakery and had a delightful deli lunch, and then got directions: to Umm Salal Mohammed... we hadn't gone far enough. We backtracked to the highway and followed the signs, this time all the way into town, where we did indeed find some old, crumbling buildings, including a tower.

The base of the tower had signs of a family living in it. We asked a passer-by if he knew where the Barzan Tower was, in English and Arabic, but he did not.
We drove the rest of the way through the town until we were sure it was over, but no sign of a fort, so we doubled back on the highway. Finally we saw what appeared to be a couple of towers back in the direction we had just passed. We went and checked it out, and glory be, it appeared to be a fort, or the carefully re-constructed remains of a fort, at any rate.

We climbed up every stairwell and peeked through every door.
At sunset, we headed back, realizing that since there was no other sign of a tower anywhere around, the first one must have been the one we were looking for. Not much of a tourist attraction, since the local didn't even know that he was standing right in front of it.

Run, Camel, Run!

Today we went to the camel races in Al Shahariya, in the very middle of the peninsula. Since the Qatar peninsula is not very big, it took about 20 minutes to get there.

First we drove around asking people where to park and where to view the races. They waved us along. We found a road next to the race track, so we thought if we followed it we might find the parking lot or the viewing area.
Then the camel race found us. We saw up ahead, rounding the bend in the track, what appeared to be a mob of vehicles and camels speeding toward us.
Vince pulled over onto the shoulder and we jumped out of the car and ran to the edge of the racetrack just in time to see the lead camels galloping along at top speed. Behind us drove their owners, urging them along by honking their horns and whipping them by remote control. Each race-camel has a small mechanical box mounted on his rump with a small whip hanging from it, which the owner can cause to spin at the push of a button from his vehicle, so that it thwacks the beast on his hindquarter – thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack – as many times as seems necessary to get him to pull into the lead.

Meanwhile, on the inner track, trios of training camels paced the race. Each consisted of an adult camel with a young one on each side, and a camel jockey driving.
The whole pack disappeared, and we got back into our car and drove around to see if we could catch up with them. We took a fast spin around the racetrack, but got back to our starting point without seeing the racers again.

We decided to park and visit with the animals and their trainers near the gates, perhaps waiting for the next race.

Finally, the race went by again; presumably they had switched to another portion of the track for the second part. This time we saw the trainers bring some of the panting, sweaty racers, still wearing their auto-whippers, in for a rest.

After we left the races, we spotted a tree-filled castle wall, so we decided to stop and check it out. On his way out was the owner, in his Land Cruiser. He said we were welcome to go into his farm and take some photos. We asked him what kind of farm it was, but he said he didn’t speak English so we would have to go see for ourselves.

We drove through the gate and parked the car and started walking around in the farm. We saw that it was filled with rows of date palms, so we thought it must be a date farm. Then we saw an emu walking along the dirt path, so we thought it must be an emu farm. Then a worker said we had to leave. On our way out, we saw a little gazelle, so we decided it must be an emu and gazelle farm.