It’s five o’clock in the morning and we are already on our way into the middle of the Dubai desert, travel mugs of steaming Nescafé in hand. Neither one of us would normally eat much at this hour of day, but since what we are about to embark upon requires endurance and strength, we also grab power bars and fruit for the car ride. I’ve just landed in Dubai from Mumbai, my adopted home of late.
Like usual, I don’t have a departure date in mind but even a lifetime spent here wouldn’t give me enough time for horse riding through the desert. I’m here to escape the chaos of Mumbai, but also to visit my closest friend, Fatima, who has been living here for seven years now. She, like myself, is a horsewoman through and through—both of us starting our riding careers before we could ride bikes and before we even knew how to count our age on our fingers for those who insisted on asking every time we got in the saddle.
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