After the National Museum and not being able to find a cache in that area we now decide to explore the Museum of Islamic Arts park for views and maybe one cache. But first we have to enter the park and here we meet one annoying taxi driver that stops near us and screams to get in because everything is closed and we should not go in that direction. We politely first and the more aggresively tell him we do not need a taxi but he doesn’t listen and harasses and follows us for a few long minutes. We haven’t encountered this since India and we didn’t expect it in a civilized country.
So we are happy when we find the entrance in the park where we can’t be followed but now are circumspect of any other locals we encounter, and with good reason as we will see later in the day. But first we enjoy the nice views of the Islamic Arts Museum as we slowly make our way through the park.
The trail then curves onto a spit of land, we are not sure whether this is natural or not. We continue following it either way towards the end with the promise of great views at the end.
And the views from the viewpoint we reach are beautiful. And somehow it is not busy, the people are not coming this way as they stop at the last bus stop which is behind a hill and not visible. And we can also find the cache here, double bonus.
And then it is time to return back to the hotel to escape the heat of the day. On the return walk we go on the bus road as it has palm trees that can provide shade, otherwise everything is quite open and it gets quite hot.
And then to our surprise as we walk through a small area with trees we find an unexpected lifer. A Masked Shrike just sits there, it is a new bird for us not something we expected to find in Doha. And then as we now take another park to avoid the streets with aggressive taxis we find another interesting thing, a trap for White-eared Bulbuls. It has a live one inside that attracts others to enter the trap. As far as we see it is not that successful but at least the captive ones seem to have water and food. And then we reach the hotel where we rest for a while before taking the corniche later in the day to the souq.
