I've been hearing about the camel races for about a year, but nobody seemed to be able to tell me when they would be, where to get a schedule, or what I was supposed to do when I got there. Qatar has a long way to go in promoting its tourism.
I eventually harassed my Qatari assistant principal to the point that he contacted someone who could provide accurate information, and he brought me a program printed from a website. The program was in Arabic, and though it had dates of races, it didn't say what time the races would start, just "morning" and "afternoon." My assistant principal told me the morning races were around 6:30 and the afternoon races were around 3:30. Hoping for more precise information, I searched Google in Arabic for some of the phrases from the program until I identified the site it came from, here. I also found the local TV station that broadcasts the races on TV and online here. Unfortunately, I still had no way of knowing the race times, though I knew the channel broadcasts them live.
So finally, one weekend we agreed to just try it with some friends around 3:30 PM, and just before leaving I checked the TV listings online to see what time the race started broadcasting. It had started at 2:00! We almost decided not to go, since it would mean a half hour drive with no guarantee of seeing a race when we got there. But we chanced it anyway, and were glad we did. You can read Rachel's account here.
As we approached the race track, we saw camels leaving, and our spirits dropped a little, but the kids were still excited to see some camels up close.
There were no signs showing where to go, so we just kept driving around through the racing complex until we found our friends who had come ahead of us. They had befriended the ambulance drivers stationed there and got some information out of them. Apparently, we were in the right place, exactly where the race would start. There were no bleachers, no seats of any kind, just this starting gate made of a curtain and a crane camera pointed at it. But then we started hearing horns.
We rushed to cross the street back into the parking lot where our car was just as a whole fleet of about 30 cars came zooming up on both sides of the track. Half the cars were on the inside of the oval track with us, and half of the cars were on the outside. They had just finished following one race, and they were all lined up waiting for the next one to start. We hopped in our car and said, "Let's go with them!" And you can watch the video below to see what happened next.
At one point, we drove across a part of the race track that clearly was used for shorter races, as it curved inward while the part the camels were on continued straight. They'd simply taken down the rails along the sides of the track and spread dirt down the cement ramps on the sides so that we could drive up and over it at racing speeds!
Big E and Miss A enjoyed driving with the windows down and watching the camels run. They insisted we go around at least 3 times, which we did. It was a lot of fun. And on the way back out, we waved goodbye to some more camels going home to rest.
Here's a video about camel racing in Saudi Arabia, and it's pretty much the same here. If you want to see our particular track, you can watch one of the races from our local track on 4 Nov here. It includes the great running commentary from a guy in one of the cars. And the cameras recording those shots are operated by guys sitting in chairs strapped to the tops of SUVs driving around the track with the rest of us!
P.S. Here are some bonus videos to show you how Big E has been teaching us Arabic at home:
I eventually harassed my Qatari assistant principal to the point that he contacted someone who could provide accurate information, and he brought me a program printed from a website. The program was in Arabic, and though it had dates of races, it didn't say what time the races would start, just "morning" and "afternoon." My assistant principal told me the morning races were around 6:30 and the afternoon races were around 3:30. Hoping for more precise information, I searched Google in Arabic for some of the phrases from the program until I identified the site it came from, here. I also found the local TV station that broadcasts the races on TV and online here. Unfortunately, I still had no way of knowing the race times, though I knew the channel broadcasts them live.
So finally, one weekend we agreed to just try it with some friends around 3:30 PM, and just before leaving I checked the TV listings online to see what time the race started broadcasting. It had started at 2:00! We almost decided not to go, since it would mean a half hour drive with no guarantee of seeing a race when we got there. But we chanced it anyway, and were glad we did. You can read Rachel's account here.
As we approached the race track, we saw camels leaving, and our spirits dropped a little, but the kids were still excited to see some camels up close.
P.S. Here are some bonus videos to show you how Big E has been teaching us Arabic at home:
And also how I've been teaching him to dance:
