New Years Day Desert Excursion

We decided to spend the first day of 2010 with a trip to the desert in northern Kuwait, up near the Iraq border, where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers  meet  the Persian Gulf.   The legendary rivers which flow through former Mesopotamia, now known as Iraq,  join near the city of Bashra before emptying into the Gulf.  The ancient city of Babylon was built along the Euphrates.  The modern city of Baghdad sits along the Tigris.  While the countries of Syria, Turkey and Iraq dispute the rites to the water,  the flow continues south into a channel along Bubiyan Island, an island claimed by Iraq during the Persian Gulf, but returned to Kuwait.   We had hopes of crossing the newly reconstructed bridge over to Bubiyan, but since the war,  the entire island is for military use only and access restricted.

As the sun began to set this evening,  a pink mosque, seemingly in the middle of nowhere (other than the desert)  appeared reflecting the glow of the sun.  Certainly prize enough for the day.

Suddenly a car pulled up and the occupants, a Kuwaiti family, asked me why I was taking photographs and would I take theirs.  Now this is certainly something that doesn't fall into my lap very often.  Most Kuwaitis prefer not to be photographed.  The woman was dressed in her burqa (black outer garment) and  hijab (head covering) while the man wore his traditional winter garment, the dishdasha.  Two young women sat in the back.  I gladly took their picture and wrote down their email address to send the digital copy.  I think they will be pleased with the result.

As they were leaving, the young man driving asked me to take his picture as he sped off.  I was pleased to see that I captured his departure perfectly.