Google Street View has replaced its cars with camels to snap parts of the Liwa desert in the United Arab Emirates. The search engine outfit hired a camel to take one of its 360-degree 'Trekker' cameras on a trip across the dunes.

Camel cam is not that interesting, it includes dunes that reach a height of 25-40 metres and a lot of sand. In the Late Stone Age they were popular with settlers and now people who like a lot of sand flock there for their holidays. Street View users can also take a virtual tour of the Liwa Oasis – the largest oasis in the Arabian Peninsula.

If you do not like sand much the oasis is also home to date farms, whose trees and fruit are important cultural symbols. Of course a camel has its advantages. It is more carbon friendly, and Google Street View users would not be able to notice the smell, that the Trekker camera operators have to endure. However, next to the mule, and Italian drivers, they are the rudest and most stubborn means of transport known to humanity.