Monthly Archives: March 2013

In search of the Highway of Death

Posted by Steve on March 23, 2013 1 comment

Cloudy Desert Sunset

Sounds like it would be the start of a great epic crime thriller right? If only the outcome was as good as this fictional story. Last weekend Sarah and I set out to find the Kuwait Highway of Death. What is this dreaded driveway? This scary street? It would be the stretch of road that the Iraqis used to drive in and out of Kuwait. It so happens that while on said road, the Coalition forces attacked and devastated their forces. Problem is that the amount of damage and the types of rounds used by the Coalition forces (depleted uranium) meant that clean up after the war would be difficult. Many people were afraid to approach the wreckage due to the radioactivity and the gruesomeness of the scene. From what we heard, to this day there are still exploded tanks, trucks, cars, and in some cases, even people, left on that road.

So naturally, I wanted to go see it.

Sarah and I planned for a full day’s excursion to see this place. We set out and determined that the road must be highway 80 since that was the one leading to Iraq in the most direct manner.

We chose poorly.

Kuwait Map

We drove all the way to near the border of Iraq (no way I am getting too close) and didn’t see anything. Sadden and defeated we turned around and headed back. On the way south on 80 we found an interesting site of Ruins. It would appear that a very small village got abandon around the time of the invasion. We stopped so I could take some pictures. We noticed that there was no visible war damage. No bullet holes or explosions. it looks like the buildings were just left and the desert was working on swallowing them back up. A local sheep herder was using the area for some of his sheep, but was not there at the time. After a while we packed up and headed home.

So, what we thought was the HoD, was just a road. Apparently it’s a smaller road to the west of 80 that claims the name Highway of Death. This means that this coming weekend, we have a new plan! Keep an eye out for the potential actual finding of…..The Highway Of Death!

Camel Racing in Kuwait!

Posted by Steve on March 10, 2013 No comments

Yesterday, Sarah and I spirited off for a small adventure in western Kuwait. We visited the Kuwait Camel Racing Club. So let me explain how we came to this point.

When I was slated to come to Kuwait the first time, (back in January) I did some searching around on Google Maps and Google Earth to find some things that would be interesting to go do while I am in country. One of the things I noticed was, what looked like, a racetrack out in the middle of the desert.

Click to embiggen

I did some more digging and found that there is a huge camel population out in that region. Putting 1 and camel together I figured out that it was a Camel racing track! When I arrived in country, I made a point to head out there and see what it was all about. Some of the websites I found on the subject (there aren’t many) mentioned that Saturday is the day to go. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a free Saturday, but I thought, “What the hell, Camels!” and went anyways on a Sunday.

The area around the racetrack is mostly desert with a small village in the middle of it. Many of the villagers have pens where they keep camels. These camels were VERY friendly and wanted to know what this weird white guy with a camera was doing. This resulted in my first batch of pictures from the area.

A few months later, Sarah and I arrive and I tell her about the camels. Saturday comes around and we have some free time so, TO THE CAMEL RACES!!! ONe of the important lessons we learned is, the place I had found that had the sign out front and was, what I thought, the location of the races…..wasn’t. If you follow the road to it’s end you find a large building with lots of flags, which is the RIGHT building. We entered the building and headed to the grandstand area where there were many plush seats and screens showing where the camels were. The track was HUGE and you could just make out the trucks that were following the camels in the distance.

The great part was that I could venture right out to the track (and in some cases on it) and take pictures. There were many different varieties of camels at the track. Some were outfit for riding (my guess was that these were ridden in as we would drive a car in) and some were obviously the racers. Interestingly, you will notice that the racing camels don’t have anyone riding them. Instead there is a small robot on the back that spurs the camel on. It’s equipped with a small whip that is remote controlled, probably by someone in one of the many trucks and cars that follow the camels around the track.