SEA OF TRANQUILLITY

The quiet emirate of Ras Al Khaimah challenges the typical UAE stereotypes, with deeply rooted history and rugged mountains, desert, and coastline. SARA HAMDAN makes the hour’s drive from Dubai—and finds her great escape.

- SARA HAMDAN

JAMIL AND I STOOD on top of a sand dune somewhere in the Al Wadi Nature Reserve, peering at the rings of Saturn through the lens of a powerful telescope. Our stargazing guide, Wilson Ukara, recounted Arabian myths and legends about the constellations overhead as the North Star shone in the sky to our right. For generations, it served as an important signpost for Bedouin riding through this desert. Today, it is a reminder that our problems are perhaps minor in the grand scheme of things.

“Did you hear that?” Ukara asked.

“I can’t hear anything,” my husband answered.

“Exactly.”

As we rode an electric golf cart back to our hotel room, a snow-white oryx stood in our path and posed for photos in the headlights. In the serene desert night, the urban sprawl of our home in Dubai seemed a world away.

Three days earlier, we had made the drive to Ras Al Khaimah for a much-needed weekend retreat after months at home with our two kids. The northernmost of the seven United Arab Emirates, RAK is known as a quiet enclave—easily accessible from Dubai or Abu Dhabi—with a history that stretches back nearly 7,000 years.