Failaka 4 "The Resort"

Well this weekend has been long awaiting Kelly and I.

Failaka Island is an Island owned by Kuwait about 30 miles to the Northeast of Kuwait City.  It is here that Alexander the Great had his outpost for trading around 325 B.C.  The island was destroyed in the early 90's by both Iraqi and U.S forces. The Iraqi government, under the direction of then leader Sadam Hussein, used Failaka Island as their spying quarters to set up a spot of easy access to invade Kuwait City. After the  involvement of the US government in the war, the Americans completely shelled the island with the purpose of destroying all Iraqi Forces. It worked and the remnants can be seen there very clearly to this day. It is very much in shambles.  A couple things on the island have been re-built since then; the resort we stayed at being one of them.  

This has been a popular paintball setting for the past year for the group that I paintball with so I was invited along and was told to bring as many people as I could.  We ended up with a group of 40 people ranging from 23-55 yrs.  

All of us were from completely different occupations; U.S Army, Kuwait Army, U.S Marines, U.S Embassy workers, University students and ACA teachers.  I was able to get 6 teachers together to join in the fun for the weekend.  We departed the marina around 8am on Friday for a 45 min "high speed" catamaran ride to the island.  We arrived and checked into the hotel, which we were the ONLY people there so it was pretty much a private gathering. We had  2 hours to relax and explore then we were off to the paintball site: An old resort on the far east side of the island.  It's a perfect place for paintball as there are dozens of little buildings all spaced out perfectly and in decrepit condition from the invasion.  We paintballed until dark then had a big bonfire on the beach before heading back to the hotel.  

There we gorged on a nice BBQ buffet dinner and then the party began.  The night was spent socializing and dancing, etc, etc....if you know what I mean.  Later that night a bunch of people ended up jumping in the hotel pool with their clothes on.  Not sure how that all began but I remember one guy grabbing his wife and throwing her in the cold 50 degree pool as we all witnessed it.  Moments later Kelly makes a bet with me in front of everyone that if I jump in the pool fully clothed that she would jump in after me......BIG MISTAKE KELLY!  I was in the pool before she finished talking.  Soon after she was too as everyone hooted and hollered.   Many people followed in after us and it turned into quite a pool party.  Unfortunately I later discovered that my camera was in my pocket when I did this little daring move.  Well the Canon SD1000 is NOT waterproof for any of you who were thinking of buying one.  Although even after wading in the pool for a few minutes the camera eventually dried out and still turns on and takes pictures, but they are black.  The display screen on the back is toast too.  Well thankfully Mom and Dad are bring me my new Nikon D80 digital SLR.

The next morning Kelly had a horseback ride planned so she headed to the hotel stables around 9am and suited up for a 2 hr journey into the desert with her guide; a british women who runs the stables.  Once she got back we sat by the pool for a bit and soaked in some more sun.  An hour or so later we got a group together and rented dune buggy's.  This was a treat!  We had 6 people, 3 buggy's 2 hrs and an entire island of sand.  

We ended up finding a herd of 200 camels way out in the desert.  The farmer came rushing out to us in his Dodge Dakota and, using only his hands to talk, told us that the buggy's were scaring the camels and to follow him to his farm.  Ok, so we did because we were sort of lost anyway.  At his farm he had a bunch of camels in pens and some mothers and babies in a coral so he had us all in there feeding them and taking pictures of them all.  What an experience.  

We headed over to an old fenced in museum with army tanks and equipment, jumped the fence and took a good look at all these machines.  We jumped in our buggy's and headed back to the hotel.  What a day!  The ferry departed around 3pm and we were back in the city by around 4.  

That evening we were busy packing up our apartment and moving to the NEW teacher building.  We have been so excited to move into this building.  Everyone has been talking about it all year and waiting for it to be finished.  It is an 11 story apartment building bought and payed for by the school we work at to house all the teachers at the school.  We are on the 4th floor so we have a little bit of a view now rather then the 1st floor at the other place.  

For those of you who are on Google Earth place your mouse on these coordinates; Old building is at 29'22'20 N 48'00'00 E and the new building is 29'20'01 N and 48'00'22 E.  Also for your information my school is 29'19'40 N and 48'01'20 E.  So as you will see we are much closer to the school now.

The apartments are small but non the less brand new and come fully equipped with a 32" Plasma T.V on the wall.  We will get some photos of it soon .

Here are some pictures of the weekend...