The season of decent weather has started in the UAE which means the events have kicked off as well. We decided to visit the Al Dhafra Camel Beauty Contest which takes place in Sweihan area of Abu Dhabi Emirate. My husband thought I should not go because the women probably weren’t welcome. So I went with a friend instead.

Camel Beauty Pageants are usually a source of sarcastic articles in the West since non-arabs fail to see the beauty and grace in camels. However, in the Arabic language the words camel and beauty have the same root and Arabs surely have a bond with these animals.

The event consists of 361 rounds of estimating each camel, evaluating a bunch of criteria, including the camel’s eye and head size, the length of her eyelashes and neck, and the texture of her coat. All the participating camels are females and around 3 years old.

After the judging is done, they announce the winners who win quite a lot of money if their camel managed to score the highest.

So yes, I happened to be the only female in the vicinity (if you don’t count all the camels of course), but it wasn’t a problem – they were so happy to welcome me! No Emiratis were allowed to go out and see the camels up close but there wasn’t any problem to go take photos for me. Even the opening video of the event has us featured roaming around.

Here are the photos from the day, I hope you do find some beauty in these wonderful creatures as well.

Thanks for stopping by,

Much love,

Anna