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- | ‘A lady at the bus stop screamed’ | + | The wild motor festival that transforms the desert into something |
- | [[https://tripscan.xyz/|трипскан]] | + | |
- | On June 14, finding | + | You hear it before you see it. Hundreds of all-terrain vehicles tearing across the desert, the roar of their engines echoing over the sand dunes. The noise goes all night long, making it impossible |
- | That was the last homestay before her long journey out of the country. | + | Not that anyone does. |
- | In the early morning of June 15, she set off to Tehran by bus. On the way, Kang says a police officer stopped | + | “There is no sleep in Liwa,” says Ginger Krook, a 23-year-old motorsport enthusiast from the Netherlands. “It’s crazy.” |
- | “Approaching Tehran, I saw black smoke, which scared me,” she says. | + | |
- | Arriving in the Iranian capital at 2 p.m., she jumped | + | Each year, the Liwa International Festival draws crowds of car fanatics deep into the Empty Quarter, the vast desert stretching |
- | “I heard sounds of gunfire, and then a lady at the bus stop screamed. I was pretty calm though… I heard gunfire from far away every 10 minutes,” she says. | + | Three hours’ drive from Abu Dhabi, the landscape is almost empty for most of the year, save for a new ribbon of blacktop and towering dunes. |
- | Although some residents looked frustrated, she says the city was quite calm. During a visit to one restaurant, everyone appeared to be carrying on as normal. However, she says her inability to speak Farsi made it difficult to get a real sense of how people truly felt about the situation. | + | In December, it becomes |
- | “Around 50 years ago, this place was known as the ‘Little Paris of the Middle East’,” she says. “Now, most people seem to carry a sense of gloom, complaining about the government. Some strike me as highly talented and speak excellent English, yet they feel suppressed by the government and lack the means to travel abroad.” | + | |
- | Kang finally got on a bus departing from Tehran at 10 p.m. and fell asleep. The next morning, she awoke to discover the bus had traveled less than 100 kilometers, caught in congested traffic with masses | + | “They come together |
- | “I was tired and hungry,” she says, adding that there was no bathroom on board the bus. After a few more struggles due to language barriers, she eventually found another bus to Maku. From there, she was able to take a taxi to the Turkish border. Crossing into Turkey at midnight, it then took another 22 hours to get to Istanbul, where she was able to catch a flight to Taiwan. | + | ‘Full throttle or nothing’ |
+ | The Liwa International Festival has been running for just over two decades. | ||
+ | The Liwa International Festival has been running for just over two decades. Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images | ||
+ | Local Emiratis first recognized the motorsport potential of the Liwa Oasis more than two decades ago. They began gathering with their off-road vehicles at Moreeb Dune, the tallest in the region at more than 300 meters (about 1,000 feet). The challenge | ||
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+ | An official festival was created in 2004 and has grown steadily. In 2024, it drew more than 600,000 visitors, according | ||
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+ | But the central attraction — racing up the Moreeb Dune — remains the same. | ||
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+ | “Everyone watches each other as they go up,” says Krook. “They are waiting for things | ||
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+ | Related article | ||
+ | Surf-Abu-Dhabi-6.jpg | ||
+ | $150 for a wave: the Abu Dhabi wave pool targeting the ultra-rich | ||
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+ | Spectators cheer drivers on, but the dune is daunting. In Arabic, Moreeb means “terrifying.” | ||
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+ | “If your tires are not big enough, your suspension is not good enough, you’re not able to come up,” she says. “You cannot be scared because it’s full throttle or nothing.” | ||
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+ | Smaller, less terrifying dunes serve as obstacles in “dune-bashing” races, where cars and trucks dart and drift across the desert, leaving exhaust and plumes of sand in their wake. | ||
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+ | © Mapbox © OpenStreetMap Improve this map | ||
+ | Liwa | ||
+ | It was “this kind of Mad Max-feeling city,” says Christian LeBlanc, 32, a Canadian influencer who attended last year. “There were these huge lights illuminating the dunes, and as we got closer you could see there were these (cars) driving up and down and up and down. We kept getting closer and closer, and (then) I could hear the chaos.” | ||
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+ | Mixing with the locals | ||