Our Habitas Ras Abrouq: The perfect place for an indulgent 'midult' solo break

I’m in the middle of the desert. It’s night-time – pitch-black – and from within the car, I can’t see a thing around me. Around an hour ago, the bumper-to-bumper traffic in Doha had fallen away, to leave the 4x4 I am travelling in the only vehicle on the road. Its headlights pick out strange shadows in the dense darkness. It is eerily quiet. Suddenly my phone rings, nearly making me jump out of my skin. It feels so remote, that I’m shocked I have service.

“Hello?”

“Mum?”

“Yes?”

“Where’s my football shirt?”

These are the joys of being a working parent in ‘midulthood’, the term to describe digital-savvy women like me between 35 and 55. No matter where you are in the world, the demands of domesticity keep chugging on.

A break in the Qatari desert was the escape I needed to shelve the responsibilities of juggling teenagers, work and ageing parents — the usual stresses of midlife — even if it was just for a few days. So far, after further phone calls and multiple WhatsApp messages later, peace was still something elusive on the horizon.

I am en route to stay in the new Our Habitas Ras Abrouq, billed as a hotel with a holistic focus, found in the Qatari desert. The drive takes one and a half hours from Doha, through an empty, barren landscape. Much of this, I learn later is the UNESCO-protected Al-Reem Biosphere Reserve, an uninhabited area in northwest Qatar. Stretching across 120,000 hectares of land, it is home to fragile ecosystems and rare desert wildlife, such as the Arabian oryx.

Our Habitas Ras Abrouq was created in partnership with Qatar Airways, the country’s national airline, and is the first hotel to open its doors on Qatar’s west coast – a strange place where the desert meets the sea. It is the second property from the group in the Middle East (the first is in UlUla in Saudi Arabia) and the collaboration, says Habitas, will form part of a new multi-destination hotel circuit in the region, with further openings planned, to offer guests a deeper understanding of local nature, culture and history. The opening is in step with Habitas’s tendency to launch hotels, which it calls ‘homes’, in emerging destinations.

The hotel is shadowy when I arrive, with low-level lighting in place to preserve the dark skies, but I wake up to a world of colour. Made up of 41 villas (from one to four bedrooms), they are shrouded in canvas to look like tents. Inside, the palette is one of sandstone, dusty pink and burnt orange to root you in the location. The villas have dividable living and sleeping areas, a large bathroom, with an extra outdoor shower, and decks with a private pool.

The décor exudes warmth with plenty of tactile touches: rattan baskets on walls, woven rugs, pretty glass lanterns and brass art pieces that give a nod to typical mashrabiya architecture, (a type of lattice fretwork). A stone egg bath, a huge, metal four-poster bed and a complimentary mini bar bring a luxurious edge. As well as looking good, the hotel has strong eco credentials, with its build having a limited impact on the environment.

Each day, you can dip into a calendar of activities which are designed to be “good for the soul” and which also reveal more about Qatari culture, so you might find calligraphy workshops, weaving classes or pottery making. At the wellbeing centre, there’s also a selection of workshops and rituals created for self-discovery.

But first, I head to Qissa, the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast. To get there from the villa, I follow a dusty path, lined with yellow jasmine and pink grasses. Close by, the placid sea of the Arabian gulf merges with the cobalt sky, as if it is one. I try one of the local specialities, labneh eggs with sourdough, and, as a white egret swoops over the sea, I switch off my phone.

First on the agenda, I have a Zen Garden Compress Massage which is luxuriously long at nearly two hours. Aches and pains are eased with locally-made oils and warm herb compresses. It’s no surprise that the therapist finds “too many knots” deep in the base of my neck.

Afterwards, I can feel my shoulders begin to lower and I pad back to my room for a dip in the pool. Next is a beachside sound therapy session. The chimes and drums are hypnotic and I soon feel my mind switching off from the endless to-do lists that usually engulf my brain.

For supper, you can head to Qissa or eat on your deck under a star-lit sky. I choose the latter; my hair is wet and I can’t be bothered to change out of my robe. Eating solo, as night descends, I discover, feels utterly indulgent. The menu is diverse and healthy, and I choose pumpkin hummus served with crispy eggplant, followed by flatbread with spicy lamb and pickled onions.

The days unfold slowly here. Or maybe it’s just that I am not doing as much. At sunrise yoga, you’ll watch the sky light up with gold, lilac and pink watercolour streaks. During somnolent treatments, such as the Pink Clay Ritual, which uses aromatic resins to scrub the body and local clay to massage your limbs, you give over all decision-making to your therapist (bliss for a multi-tasker). Inspired by traditional therapies, they all feel deeply cosseting and healing.

For sun-seekers, there’s a beach bar, with a striking infinity pool and an Ibiza-style chill-out soundtrack. You can flop into a bean bag — perfect to sip a mint lemonade as you read your book. It’s not all lounging around, though, as there are Padel and tennis courts, stand-up paddle-boarding and glass bottom kayaks to explore the Arabian Sea’s tranquil waters, home to dolphins and turtles.

When building the resort, Habitas also partnered with the innovative Atlas Bookstore, founded by Qatari sisters Fatma Al Sehlawi and Reem Al Sehlawi, to help with cultural advisory. The sisters enlisted Studio Imara, based in Doha, to bring an authentic feel to the interiors. At the entrance to the hotel is a stainless steel sculpture by Khalid Shahin and the hotel plans to collaborate with Qatar museums to showcase more artworks and to stage exhibits, concerts and screenings to celebrate local artists.

Just before sundown each day, you can book in for a desert safari that takes you across the lunar landscape to spot desert gazelles and shy oryx. As part of the journey, you’ll visit the art installation by Richard Serra. East-West/West-East is made of four towering steel plates, each 14km high and spanning a km. It’s a dramatic vision, found amid the sand dunes in this vast, desolate landscape. It brings home just how small we are on this earth.

“Welcome home,” they say when I return to the hotel. I could get used to this.

Rates start at £745 per night at Our Habitas Ras Abrouq