We were all winded when we got to the top of the hill. The last 100 feet of the sand dune was at a 30% gradient and it disintegrated under your burning legs as we clawed to the top. Night had fallen in the desert and brought with it the chill that seemed to seep up from the shifting grains below, your fingernails cold at the same time sweat rolled down your back. 

So now, here we were.

Standing high above a makeshift camp our bellies full of fresh food and our skin dry and pink from a day in the sun. Photographers, writers, and designers standing on a dune an hour outside of Abu Dhabi in the pitch black and saying nothing. Nightly prayers laid their long arms across the valley below via loudspeakers and we said nothing.

We were strangers a few days ago, brought to a foreign place by Puma to cover a sport we knew nothing about. A group of people more talented than I, who have amazed me with their charm and drive. People who did not see a spot for themselves in the world and so decided to make one. We all had started Tumblr’s at some point in our life to explore a passion and now those same blogs have us sitting on this dune after a day of doing things we only ever dreamed of. I was thinking how This world is wonderful and strange when I thought I heard someone laugh, but alas it was all silence and prayer.