Camel races and Kuwait towers

Saturday
This morning, after breakfast out, we went to the camel races, which are located about 45 mins drive out of the city, in the desert - not a particularly attractive desert - just an expanse of flat rocky ground, traversed by electricity pylons, with the occasional Bedouin tent. Laura’s friend from church was kind enough to take us. This was the last race of the season, which started in November. There is an air-conditioned club building with seats and TV screens, but most of the time we watched from the edge of the track. They start off in the distance - I think Laura said they were young camels today, and they were racing for 3 or 5 km. In the past they used child jockeys, but that became controversial, and nowadays they use small robotic jockeys, controlled from SUVs which race along an adjacent track! To the uninitiated, it’s quite a strange sight, as it’s the SUVs you see first, emerging from a cloud of dust, and you think “I thought I’d come to see camel racing, not SUVs”! The first camels would be going at a fair pace, but then you always had a few stragglers who looked as if they were out for an afternoon stroll! It mad for an interesting outing, and something uniquely Middle Eastern!
Later in the afternoon, we took a taxi to Kuwait towers. The Kuwait Towers were designed by Danish architect Malene Bjørn as part of a water distribution project. Five sites of typical "mushroom" water towers were built, but the Emir of Kuwait wanted a more attractive design for the sixth site. Kuwait towers were inaugurated in March 1979 and comprise two major towers and a minor tower. The main tower is 614 ft high and houses the Main Sphere and the Viewing Sphere, as well as restaurant, café and reception halls; the lower sphere holds in its upper half a restaurant, and in its bottom half a water tank of 4,500 cubic meters. The minor tower houses equipment for illuminating the other two. We went for a short walk along a fishing pier, and along the adjacent beach, then went up to the viewing tower. We spent a while up there, waiting for the sunset, then came down and took a few more photos of them lit up - the lighting and designs vary according to the occasion. We then went to Al Shaheed Park in the Centre of Kuwait City. Unfortunately this turned out to be rather disappointing. It is the largest Kuwait City Park, and has fountains and sculptures all lit up at night, with the city skyscrapers in the background. We decided to get something to eat at one of the cafes in the park, then set out to explore the park. We hadn’t gone too far, when suddenly all the lights went out - except for those lighting up the paths. Initially we thought perhaps they had a power cut, but it transpired later that they had turned off the lights in recognition of “Earth Hour”, an “annual environmental campaign that brings attention to the effects of climate change by asking people to switch of lights at homes and businesses for an hour at 8.30pm local time, usually on the last Saturday of March.” We thought it was a rather pathetic observance, when in the background all the skyscrapers were still lit up in all their glory! Laura felt it was typically Kuwaiti! So a very disappointing end to otherwise a good day!