by I am in the middle of the desert. It’s night-pitch-black and from the car I can’t see anything around me. About an hour ago, the traffic to be bumper in Doha had dropped to leave the 4×4, where I drive on the street with the only vehicle. His headlights choose strange shadows in the dense darkness. It is incredibly quiet. Suddenly my phone rings and almost let me jump out of my skin. It feels so far that I am shocked that I have service.
“Hello?”
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Where is my football shirt?”
These are the joys of being between 35 and 55 years in the middle of the damn, the term to describe digital experienced women like me. Regardless of where you are in the world, the requirements of domesticity are chugging.
A break in the Qatar desert was the escape I needed to do the responsibility of juggling teenagers, work and aging parents – the usual stress of midlife – even if it only took a few days. After further phone calls and several WhatsApp messages later, peace was still something heavier on the horizon.
I am on my way to spend the night in the new Habitas Ras Abrouq, which is charged as a hotel with a holistic focus in the Qatarian desert. The journey takes an hour and a half from Doha, through an empty, barren landscape. A large part of it later learns the Al-Reem Biosphere Reserve protected by the UNESCO, an uninhabited area in the northwest of Qatar. It stretches over 120,000 hectares of land and houses fragile ecosystems and rare desert deer animals such as the Arab oryx.
Our Haibas Ras Abrouq was founded in collaboration with Qatar Airways, the country’s National Airline, and is the first hotel to open its doors on the west coast of Qatar – a strange place where the desert hits the sea. It is the second property of the group in the Middle East (the first is in Ulula in Saudi Arabia) and, according to Habitas, the collaboration will be part of a new multi-destination hotel racing stretch in the region, with further openings planned to convey a deeper understanding of local nature, culture and history to guests. The opening is in a step with the tendency of Haoshas, hotels, which you call “houses”, to start in aspiring goals.
The hotel is shady when I arrive with low lighting to keep the dark sky, but I wake up in a world of color. They consist of 41 villas (from one to four bedrooms) and are so enveloped in canvas to look like tents. Inside, the palette of sandstone, dusty pink and burned orange belongs to root at the point. The villas have tendable living and sleeping areas, a large bathroom, an additional shower outdoors and decks with a private pool.
The decor radiates heat with many tactile details: rattan baskets on walls, woven carpets, pretty glass lanterns and brass art pieces that nod typically nod Mashabiya Architecture (a kind of grid on the federal government). A stone egg pool, a huge metal four-shop bed and a free mini bar bring a luxurious edge. The hotel not only looks good, it also has strong environmental reporting information, with its building only having a limited impact on the environment.
Every day you can immerse yourself in a calendar of activities that are “good for the soul” and also reveal more about the Qatarian culture, so that you may find calligraphy workshops, web courses or pottery. There is also a selection of workshops and rituals that were created for self -discovery in the Wellbeberg Center.
But first I go to Qissa for breakfast, the hotel’s restaurant. To get there from the villa, I follow a dusty path that is lined with yellow jasmine and pink grass. Nearby, the calm sea of the Arabic golf melts with the cobalt sky as if it were one. I try one of the local specialties, Labneh eggs with sourdough, and as a white rice I fall out my phone.
First I have a Zen garden compress massage on the agenda, which is luxurious after almost two hours. Pain is loosened with locally produced oils and warm herbal compresses. It is no surprise that the therapist finds “too many knots” deep on my neck.
Then I can feel how my shoulders start to lower and I back to my room to dive a bath in the pool. Next comes a sound therapy meeting on the beach. The carillon and the drums are hypnotic and I soon feel that my thoughts are switched off by the endless to-do lists that usually devour my brain.
For dinner you can drive to Qissa on your deck under a starry sky. I choose the latter; My hair is wet and I can’t bother to change my robe. When I eat solo while the night descends, I feel indulgent. The menu is diverse and healthy, and I choose pumpkin hummus, served with crispy eggplants, followed by flatbread with sharp lamb and inserted onions.
The days are slowly developing here. Or maybe I’m not doing that much. At Sunrise Yoga, you can see how the sky lights up with gold, lilac and pink watercolor strips. During the sleepy treatments such as the pink tone ritual, the aromatic resin to scrub the body and the local tone to massage your limbs, give all decisions to your therapist (bliss for a multitasker). Inspired by traditional therapies, they all feel deep and healing.
For the sun seeks there is a beach bar with a striking infinity pool and a chill-out soundtrack in Ibiza style. You can flop into a bean bag – perfect to sip a mint lemonade while reading your book. However, everything is not all around, as there are paddles and tennis courts, stand-up paddle and glass floor kayaks to explore the calm water of the Arabic Sea, in which dolphins and turtles are located.
When building the resort, Habitas also worked with the innovative Atlas Bookstore, which was founded by the Qatarian sisters Fatma Al Sehlawi and Reem Al Sehlawi to help with cultural advice. The sisters have entered the IMARA studio based in Doha in order to give the interiors an authentic feeling. At the entrance to the hotel there is a stainless steel sculpture from Khalid Shahin and the Hotel plans to work with Qatar museums to present more works of art and stage exhibits, concerts and demonstrations to celebrate local artists.
Shortly before sunset every day you can book for a desert safari that leads you over the lunar landscape to recognize desert gazelles and shy oryx. During the trip, visit Richard Serra’s art installation. East-West/West-East consists of four high-towering steel plates, each of which is 14 km high and extend over a km. It is a dramatic vision that can be found in the middle of the sand dunes in this huge, abandoned landscape. It brings home how small we are on this earth.
“Welcome home,” they say when I return to the hotel. I could get used to it.
The prices start at our Habsas Ras Abrouq at £ 745 per night
