As we sat in the evening warmth, sipping drinks and watching the Dahab sunset, the familiar clip-clop of hooves gradually approached on the beachside path.
Two chestnut mares trotted into view and their job was done.
Anyone with the vaguest interest in riding them was standing, craning their neck for a better view of the improbably picturesque sight of horses on a beach with the backdrop of the Red Sea. All that Arab, the owner of the riding school, had to do was ask. The business was as good as his.
At the appointed time the next evening, Arab appeared with Aleese, and gingerly Clare mounted the fourth unfamiliar pony in the Odyssey so far. I followed on foot to catch the moment in celluloid and for the first couple of miles I was at every photogenic vantage point to capture the beach ride experience. Then Arab suggested a canter, which quickly lengthened into a gallop and Clare disappeared in a cloud of dust thrown up by the Aleese’s pounding hooves.
Inland from the beach they charged, and across a lagoon. The mountains reflected perfectly in the twilight and as they shrunk into the distance I had to content myself with a conversation with Arab’s assistant Yousef and his lovely white donkey, William. Yousef said little but William, in his pretty red wool saddle chatted incessantly for the whole time Clare and Arab were away.
Finally, having snapped William with his ears up, ears down, his over the shoulder look for the camera and from every other conceivable angle, the wanderers returned. Aleese was sweating like a horse that has just galloped for the last half hour. Clare’s hair was a tangle and she was beaming from ear to ear.
Turning for home we all walked in the failing light.
Arab said Mubarak had tried to sell this lagoon to rich Emiratees but the Bedouin who have roamed the vast area since before history, resisted. Now, Mubarak is on trial from his hospital bed and the lagoon remains as it always has.
With the exception of a large concrete ice cream cone plonked incongruously in the middle of it.
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