Sheikhdom offering adventures

Bear Grylls camp seen as perfect fit for pandemic tourism

JEBEL JAIS MOUNTAIN, United Arab Emirates — The northernmost sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates hopes a new socially distant adventure camp showcasing its wide-open spaces, fresh air and mountain peaks can aid in reviving its tourist industry during the coronavirus pandemic.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s the bug eating — a hallmark of the British adventurer whose name graces the course.

Ras al- Khaimah, one of seven sheikhdoms in the oil-rich federation, has partnered with survival instructor Bear Grylls to offer a new outdoor adventure camp on Jebel Jais, a mountain that has the highest point in the federation on the Arabian Peninsula.

The former special forces trooper offers a can-do attitude in his televised treks into the unknown with a camera crew in tow. His outdoor witticisms pepper the course offered in Ras al-Khaimah, which can last for several hours or include a full overnight experience with courses in knifemanship, knot tying and eating far beyond the norms of room service on a beachside vacation.

“People want to be put out of their comfort zone now and that’s what we try to do,” Martin Norton, the lead instructor of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy, told The Associated Press. “We try to take everyone to their sort of limit where they feel like they’re uncomfortable and we can, you know, push them. And people then believe after the course they’re capable of a lot more than what they think they are.”

On Thursday, participants on Jebel Jais rappelled down the sheer face of a mountainside, a herd of goats bleating above them. Several grimaced through the dried worms, which tasted to one AP journalist like bulgur wheat until an instructor helpfully noted they leave a long-lingering aftertaste.

Already, Grylls’ adventure camps have sprung up in his native United Kingdom, as well as 10 sites in China. The Ras al-Khaimah camp marks his first in the Middle East, on a mountain that’s also home to a palace of the state’s hereditary ruler, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi.

It’s OK if you need to check a map to find Ras alKhaimah — or “Top of the Tent” in Arabic. The emirate often finds itself overshadowed by skyscraper-studded Dubai or oil-rich Abu Dhabi, the powerhouse emirates in the federation.

The emirate, otherwise known for a ceramics factory bearing its initials RAK, has worked to increase tourism, offering itself as a secondary destination in the federation or a quick holiday for the country’s millions of expatriate workers. Russia, Kazakhstan and other nations once part of the former Soviet Union represent most of the tourists traveling from abroad.