Al Aryam Island Camping

We discovered a new camping and fishing site in Abu Dhabi that rendered us memories to cherish for a lifetime.

This is a longish post, you might want to grab a cuppa and snuggle a little inside your duvet while reading, I promise this one is amazing!

Our blogger friends Arence and Jill of A World of Travel and Possibilities introduced us to this serene and awe-inspiring place with just the sea, the sky and the vast desert around us with a little bit of the city peeking on us.

Some 200 kilometers outside of Dubai, we headed to the west coast of Abu Dhabi passing Musafa towards Al Gweifat. The seemingly endless road to nowhere with only the moon and the stars to guide us in the pitch of darkness lead us to Al Aryam Island. Arence as our navigator was very keen not to miss the turn leading to the island, otherwise, U-turn is in another half an hour drive.

We saw a couple of small signboard that says Al Aryam before the turn and if you plan to go to visit this place, you must not miss it too.

We were giddy with excitement as we enter the rough road to the island thinking about the adventure that awaits us.

We rolled the windows down and savor the cold wind pleasantly touching our skin. I used the flash on my phone making Mica wrinkled her forehead while I can see a sweet smile from Prince's face.

The camping site is by the beach, it was already dotted with campers when we arrived but there was plenty of space in between campers and there was nothing to worry about privacy.

We stop for a while to inhale it all in, the peace and quietness of this place, the beauty of being disconnected from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was so peaceful, I felt so peaceful.

We parked our cars in a half-circle formation and built our tents in between to fill the gaps.

here's hubby building our five-star accommodation beneath the stars :D

My daughter played DJ and cranked up the music, she's got a pretty awesome playlist on her iPad, connected it via Bluetooth to this Merlin waterproof speaker I received recently. It lasted us almost four hours of musical entertainment with very good sound quality. It connects and plays with any phone or tablet with Bluetooth that can be paired with it. It can also be used as a power bank in case your phone needs charging. Its modern design is pretty cool, small but powerful too. It only comes in black color but I do hope they will launch colored ones too.

The weather last November inside the city wasn't that cold but in the desert, it was cold and a bonfire is a must, not only to keep us warm but also for something special we wanted to do later on.

If you ask where we got our firewood, no, we didn't buy it, we were tempted to buy but we didn't. The very resourceful couple Arence and Jill got some used wooden palettes for free from a building construction next to their apartment, chopped it off, packed it and loaded it in our SUV.

The money that was supposed to be burned for the firewood was added to our food money. (yay, talk about savings here). As you can see, the other parts of the firewood served as benches.

Speaking of food, do you know that we only agreed to join this camping just because we wanted to taste chef Jill's lechon belly? She already perfected her recipe and wanted us all to taste it, the deal was no camping no lechon. (insert big smiley) LOL!!!

but in reality, we all wanted to go stargazing!!!

Something we don't see every day in the city with all the light pollution. The sky was clear that night and all the stars shined brightly. Our friend Lady of Lady and her sweet escapes even spotted and pointed at Orion's belt.

We were all starving but everyone patiently waited while Chef Jill diligently prepare the food and reheat the lechon belly (she pre-cooked at home) on the grill.

Who can resist these two flavorful slabs of pork belly roasted to perfection?

closer...

and definitely not me.

Salivating? Me too! Jill, when can we taste your belly lechon again?

By the way, Jill accepts made to order belly lechon, just keep in touch and will direct you to her.

When everything was reheated, we all dig in and shared a sumptuous dinner with amazing friends we already treated like family.

Myla of Find Me A Break and her fiance Ricky and Dobbie of course 

Edcel of Dubai OFW and wife Jana

When we're done eating and everyone had their fair share, we put away the leftover food and clean up after ourselves. Not long before it was time for dessert!!!

S'mores!!!!

The young ones enjoyed their roasted marshmallows

while the adults, well, we made it a little more for adults of course

After dessert, some of us retired to their tents but a few stayed up and chatted the night away up to the last bit of heat from our campfire and waited for the cracking of dawn

Gelo of Beyond Toxicity

The moon slowly moves to the west as it gave way to the sun.

From darkness, the sky was painted with all the lovely colors come morning and it was a glorious sight to behold

On the other side, the moon slowly drifted away but stayed until it was bright.

and the water mirrored the cotton candy-like horizon

It was magical to see both the sun and the moon together in the sky with all the beautiful splash of colors - powder blue, light pink, yellow gold, and orange.

By sunrise, everyone was up to witness it and basked in its glory.

After watching and taking loads of photos of the sunrise, we set to prepare breakfast, fired up the grill and started cooking.

Jill got it all covered, she's got everything ready, she definitely gave new meaning to cooking in the wilderness. I felt like I'm glamping.

We have pancakes, pandelsal, sausages, eggs, and baked beans. We also have tocino (cured pork meat) a special request from Kenneth of #iKen also known as Dubai Travel Blogger, the leftover rice was turned into a simple fried-rice and we fried the remaining lechon belly to reheat it.

This is Filipino breakfast at its finest (wink)

We stayed more for a while, played Uno with the kids, chatted and planned our next adventure.

We started packing up just when the heat of the sun became a little less tolerable.

Sheila, Alvin, and Blake of AB and Me

We made sure that whatever we brought here was taken away including our garbage, we never wanted this little piece of paradise to get ruined. We urge you all to do the same. There is a truck that comes and collects the garbage and all you need to do is put it all in a black bag, sealed or knot it. Let's keep this place clean for other campers as well. Clean as you go.

Before we bid farewell, we lined up for that jump shot

On our way out, beauty still presents itself. This is where you apply the saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It might be looking all too plain, but there is actually more to it.

Please be sure to click the blog links of my friends for your reading pleasure. Thank you very much to Edcel, Ed, Gelo, Myla for the photos.

It did not take long for me to come back here, I promised to bring friends and we did but that's another story.

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