Oman
I am finally sitting down to writing this post an entire 8
months after my trip to Oman (update: blog post completed one year and three months after trip). Usually as time goes on, the mind forgets and
memories fade. But in this case, I only think about my time in Oman more and
more. This could be because it simply was an incredible trip. Or perhaps it was that I was surprised and
overwhelmed by the immense beauty of this country hidden from Western attention
or unknown to us as a travel destination. Then, maybe it was because 5 twenty something
girls and one guy stuffed themselves into one SUV and road tripped up and down
this Sleepy Sultanate. Whatever the reason, I have to share my 5 days in the Magical
Sultanate of Oman with the world.
Preface:
In January of 2012, my girl friends and I talked about
taking a trip somewhere together. After
some intense research on www.flydubai.com,
we decided that our best (and most economical bet) would be traveling to
Oman. I had heard virtually nothing on
the country, except for the fact that this is where some AIESECERs that I met
in college were living and working. My
four friends and I bought our tickets and I contacted an fellow AIESECer,
Abdullah, who I had met at a national AIESEC conference in Madison, Wisconsin
the summer before my senior year of college.
Several students from Oman came that particular year because they were
going to start a AIESEC chapter in Oman. I took a few days off of my two summer
jobs (Campus Tour Guide and Secretary to the Office of Jim Doyle) to fraternize
with these internationals. And because I
was so knowledgeable about the UW-Madison campus and the Wisconsin Capitol
Building due to my two glamorous jobs, I took the out-of-town AIESECers on a
tour of Madison. Little did I know, this
half a day tour would pay off five years later
In my facebook message to Abdullah, I re-introduced myself
and hoped that he had remembered me from 2008. I told him that my friends and I
would be coming to Oman at the end of April and asked if he had any
recommendations as for places to stay, things to do, sites to visit. He
answered telling me of course he remembered me and just let him know the dates,
and he’ll arrange everything. I was a
little weary, thinking “Why would someone who I spend 5 days with 5 years ago
put 5 days of his life aside to take around 5 America girls?” But seeing as he
was our only connection and source of knowledge, I instead said “Sounds great!
See you soon.”
Getting There
Our flight from Amman to Dubai was delayed about 3 hours,
and we made it to the Dubai airport in just enough time for them to deny us
entry to our gate and put us on the next flight to Muscat, wait for it… 10
hours later. So our first night in
Muscat was completely scrapped and instead we got to spend our night in the
Dubai transit terminal where as one kind young FlyDubai staffer informed us,
“there’s not even a full duty free or food court.” We demanded that FlyDubai
pay for a hotel for us, and while they denied our humble request, they were
kind enough to provide meal vouchers for us, worth a whopping value meal at
McDonalds. And when redeemed, I was able
to get a free ice cream cone for a big smile and a few flirtatious comments
with the South Asian slave-cashier.
Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.
So, instead of sleeping in Muscat
as planned, we instead got to spend the night dozing off and on amidst flowing
garbs of different colors and materials boarding planes to Riyadh and Kandahar.
When we finally boarded our 5:30 AM flight to Muscat, we
were relieved that we were finally moving, but also furious to know that after
10 hours of waiting, it was only a 45-minute flight between that horridly uncomfortable
transit terminal and our destination.
When we arrived at the Muscat International Airport, our trusty new
friend Abdullah was waiting to load us all into his SUV.
He took us to a budget hotel (Sun City Hotel, 24 789801, 25
Omani Riyals/ night. We slept in a triple room, and I think I remember paying
13 OR for that night) where we slept from about 7 AM until about noon. We then
set out for our first destination.
Day 1: The Unintentional 8 Hour Road Trip
We went out for a nice breakfast/ lunch of Filipino food and
walking back to the SUV, it started to sprinkle. “That sucks,” we thought, but we were not
going to let that ruin our day. I had read in the guidebook that travelers should
watch out for flash floods, but since we had a local as our guide, I naturally
he assumed he knew everything and put any worries aside. That was, until we
could not put our worries aside any more. That is, until they were directly in
front of us blocking our way.
After about an hour
towards our destination, Abdullah pulled the truck to the side of the
road. Looking out the front window, I
saw a huge deluge-turned-river covering the next 100 meters of highway in front
of us. But I wasn’t the only one
looking; about a 25 other dudes had parked their cars and were standing in
their dish–dashi and kummas on the sidelines of this pop-up Amazon, waiting for
it to clear.
Our crew took some pictures, waited some time, but upon
realizing that this roadblock was going nowhere, we turned around and looked
for another route to our destination. We
thought everything was smooth sailing until we saw several cars passing by us
who seemed to be waving us back. We couldn’t figure out why they were telling
us to turn the other way, so we did what any other confused travel group would
do: climb a mountain to find out.
After 20 or 30 minutes of climbing this boulder mountain
which the road wove through, we reached a point where we could see ahead. Again, we spotted a recently formed river
that crossed the road and prevented those cars from crossing. But after
discussing our options of either returning to Muscat and getting a hotel or
forging ahead and attempt to reach the Wahiba Sands desert, we (Abdullah)
decided that we’d forge ahead.
And forge we did. We forged that first river that we
spotted, in addition to about 7 more that we encountered on the road to the
desert. (And to think, if our initial
flight was not delayed 3 hours, we would have made it out of Muscat before the
rain started and not had to risk the health and well-being of Abdullah’s
SUV). Though I was not driving, riding
through these floods was one of the scarier things I have experienced. First,
we would queue up on the highway (aka sit in traffic) for anywhere ranging from
5-30 minutes, then, drive through the deluge at about 5 miles per hour,
watching debris stream past us from one side of the road to the other, hoping
that we too, would not be swept off the road and into the waiting flood-filled
valleys nearby and become just another piece of debris. All the while not knowing if the water would
reach the engine and we would conk out and sit there, stuck, in the middle of
waist high waters. It was at this moment
that I got the idea to create an “Oman Trail” computer game. (Note: I never went through with capitalizing
on this idea.)
But alas, thanks to our trusty Abdullah and his trusty
Mitsubishi 4 wheel drive, we made it out alive. Or should I say “in,” as our
more than 8 hour stop-and-go, wait-and-forge took us to the interior of the
country to a desert called Wahiba Sands.
We arrived at a Bedouin camp where we ate dinner, smoked argileh, and
went to sleep in our tiny desert cabins.
Half of our party thought it might be a good idea to sleep
outside to stay cool, as the cabins lacked airflow and were kind of stuffy.
Thankfully I said no to this proposition, since the next morning, the girls
woke up covered from head to toe in mosquito bites. One of my friends was allergic to mosquito
bites and ended up looking like a battered woman, her eyes and face swollen and
black. Ya maskeena.
Day 2: Dune Crashing,
Wadi Bani Khalid and Ras al-Jin Turtle Reserve
We ate breakfast provided by the camp and hopped in some 30
year old Jeeps for our first dune bashing experience. I quickly called shotgun and hopped in the
front seat, as the back did not have any seatbelts. I had never been “dune bashing” before, but
whatever it was, it sounded like a seatbelt-necessary sport. In a few minutes, we were speeding off over
the golden-red Wahiba sands dunes, shooting up inclines and what seemed to be
like free-falling down the hills. Before
going down the biggest and grand-finale of dunes, our goofy Bedioun guide, who,
by the way, shared with us that he had made his way down to Yemen several times
sometimes by road, but sometimes over the unmaintained borders in the mountains
when the road checkpoints were too dangerous, all the while packing heat (“You
have to be ready to fire back.”) in addition to donning Yemeni dress and the
traditional khanjar, or dagger, so
that he fit in (“They don’t like outsiders.”), turned to me, grinned a toothy
grin and said “I have never done this before.”
That was just what we needed to get the adrenaline running before
sliding diagonally down the gigantic sand drift.
After saying adieu to our charming guide, we hopped back in
Abdullah’s SUV and headed in the direction of our next adventure, which we
decided would be Wadi Bani Khaled. Luckily the weather had cleared up and it
was smooth sailing all the way there.
I had never imagined a place as beautiful as Wadi Bani
Khaled could exist on our planet. Or
maybe I knew that places like that existed in books and on TV, but never
thought I would see one with my own eyes.
We parked the SUV in the parking lot and followed a tiny trickle of
water as it grew bigger into a stream and then into a deep blue-green pool
tucked in a cove surrounded by rocky mountains and vibrant jungle green palm
trees and shrubbery.
We spent the afternoon hiking, swimming and walking up the
wadi, with a young school boy as our makeshift guide. He said that his school
was closed for the day because of the floods, which make it dangerous for some
students and teachers to travel to and from the school. So instead of being
there, he was at Wadi Bani Khalid hanging out with foreigners and working on
his English. He held my camera for me so
I could swim and he led us through the wadi to the cave at the end. I tried my
best to go into the cave, but had to turn back after about 30 feet and our new
friend’s warning “Watch out for the bats!”
Not much more else to say about this place except that it
had a sort of simple and pristine beauty that I had never experienced
before. After our beautiful hike/swim
down the wadi and back, we returned to the SUV, squeezed in, 2 in the front, 4
in the back and headed to our next destination: Sur.
After about 2 more hours in the car, we arrived at our
luxury (read: 1 star) hotel in Sur: the appropriately named Sur Hotel. Though the Ras al- Jinz Turtle Reserve was about 50 minutes away by car, we decided to save some money and stay in the unassuming town of Sur. You can also camp on the beach at Ras
al Jinz, or stay in their hotel, but it's considerably more expensive.
After a short rest at the hotel, we drove the 50 minutes
to the Turtle Reserve just in time for the 9 PM tour. Though May was not nesting season, they say
that at least one sea turtle nests each night on this beach. (Note: We called about an hour in advance to
double check what time the tour started, and realized that we should have
called earlier to make a reservation, as there are limited guest allowed on
each tour. We got lucky though, as it
was a Sunday night and not high tourist season. But if you're going, make sure
to call at least a day or two in advance. )
On this night, there was one turtle nesting on the beach,
and it was an incredible sight to see.
Seeing something on TV or in a zoo is completely different from seeing
it in its natural environment. We were
intruding, I'll admit, on this very private time for a mama turtle (imagine an
audience of 30 internationals shining a light on you as you squirt eggs out of your butt), but to be able to witness a
sea turtle build a nest, lay its eggs and return to sea is something quite
special and makes you feel at least a little closer to the earth that we
usually only see through our human interactions in our man-made structures.
Day 3: Wadi Shab and Zanzabari Food
That morning, we enjoyed a delicious Syrian breakfast at a
nearby restaurant. One of the greatest
things about food culture in the Middle East is the "fresh juices"
that are popular. These fresh juices are
more of smoothies by American standards, and more delicious than anything
you'll have in the US because they are completely natural and made with fresh
fruit. The one that I got that morning
was the "Avocado Juice" which was blended avocado, milk and honey. Watch out, America. I'm going to capitalize on this soon.
After breakfast we hit the road again, heading this time to
Wadi Shab, a bigger and more famous wadi
(canyon with river) in Oman. We arrived
after an hour and geared up for another hike.
Except this time, the sky was looking rather ominous. I had read in the Lonley Planet guidebook,
one should watch out for flash floods when in Oman. And of course as we had experienced days
before, flash floods were real and they were powerful. So I was quite nervous to walk into this
canyon when the sky looked like rain, and imagined a tsunami style wave rushing
down the canyon and us running back through the wadi, Indiana Jones style, for our lives. But luckily we met two Omani men enjoying the
wadi on their day off, who told us that after it starts raining, it takes at
least 2-4 hours for a flash flood to form.
So we thought, heck, if these locals are climbing deeper and deeper into
this canyon, we can too.
When we got to the end of the wadi, that is when the mountain stopped us and we couldn't walk any
longer, it actually wasn’t the end.
These Omani guys told us that if we could swim, there was more to
see. So though the foot path ended, we
could swim on down the river, into a cave, where there was a waterfall to see.
So while my non-swimming comrades stayed behind, my two
girlfriends and I hopped into the water and swam behind our two new Omani
friends. We swam for a few minutes until
we got to a thin break in the canyon which we apparently had to swim through to
get to the cave. The Omani guys told us
that we were lucky, because if it had rained more, this tunnel would be
completely filled with water and we'd have to dive under and swim through it to
get to the cave.
This was one of those moments where you think, "Well,
it's just me here. If something happens, ain't no lifeguard, no nothing to save
me." It was a few minutes swim to
land, then about an hour and a half walk, over rocky terrain and over cliff
edges, to the mouth of the wadi and
then at least another 2 hours driving to Muscat, the capitol of Oman. But then again, it's also one of those
moments where you just do it because you've already come that far. So we swam into the tunnel, with just enough
space above us to keep out our heads above the water. Once we reached the cave, it wasn't anything
too special to be honest, but again, it was that feeling that you're in an
underwater cave, at the end of a wadi, off an unmarked overpass, in Oman, in
the Middle East, and well shit... this is what life is all about.
Though the guys wanted to lead us further into the cave and
show us a cool "rock chair" underneath another waterfall, I felt good
about how far I had come and decided to head back. As our group was walking back, it started to
sprinkle a little and I thought "It's happening." So we made haste
and got out of there as quickly as possible.
And of course, about 90 minutes later, as soon as we got back to the car
and drove out of the parking lot, the heavens opened and the rain came down so
heavy that we had to pull over and wait until we could see out of our
windshield.
We wanted to stop at the Bimmah Sinkhole, which was on the way back to Muscat but with the heavy rain, there was
just no point.
That afternoon, we made the 2 hour drive to Muscat, took a
surprise stop at Abdullah's house to meet his family, and then took another
surprise stop at a locals-only Zanzibari restaurant. In case you ain't know, Zanzibar is the
island directly off the coast of Tanzania.
And back in the day, it was under control of the Sultanate of Oman. And
in fact at some point, the capitol of Oman was located across the bay in
Zanzibar. So for centuries there has been a connection between the two places,
their cultures, and of course, their
food. So when we told our kind,
thoughtful and I-don't-give-a-shit-that-I'm-roving-the-country-with-five-American-women
Omani friend/guide that we wanted to try whatever we could only eat here, he
decided to take us to this Zanzabari restaurant. Though I've only had African food a handful
of times, this food was I suppose not surprisingly, very African. There were
several stews, yams, a fufu type dish, meat and rice. All very delicious, all very filling.
Late that night we drove on to our hotel in Muscat. We quickly entered into a food coma and
settled in for the evening.
Day 4:
After a modest breakfast at the hotel, Abdullah picked us up
and we headed to see some sights in Muscat.
The Sultan's Palace was an oasis in this otherwise, gray and dusty
capitol. It looked like something out of a futuristic film from decades ago,
what with the strange architecture and perfectly groomed grounds. After walking through the beauteous buildings
and gardens, we headed to the beach!
Just when we thought things couldn't get any better, we got
to the Oman Dive Center. It was something ridiculous like $4 to get in and we
basically had the beach to ourselves. It
was tucked away in a quite cove where the water was a clear, shimmering and
blue all at the same time. It was here that we rented snorkeling equipment and
helped ourselves to the nearby coral reef along the edge of the bay. Though it wasn't as great as the reef at the
red sea, we did see a sea turtle swimming around the bay. I swam directly above it, following it for
some time before it swam back into the ocean.
And still, the day was not over. After burning to a crisp in the hot Persian
Gulf sun, we went back to the hotel and got ready to head to the Royal Opera
House. Story goes that Sultan Qaboos of
Oman was always a big fan of the arts and in 2001, ordered the building of an
opera house. Lucky me, it opened in 2011
and my friends and I were able to enjoy a show there. We bought the nosebleed seat tickets for
something like $15 or $20 for the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico. More than anything, it was fun to simply to
step foot in this overly lavish Opera House and scope out the beautiful brown
Omani men in their crisp, white, flowing national garb, the dish-dashe and the
equally stunning women, some in flowing evening gowns and hijabs and others in
more Western style high-fashion skirts, blouses and oh-so-high heels.
And again, like in Dubai, it was a blast to be able to bring
together so many different people from different time periods in my life. Abdullah and our other AIESEC friend,
Ghassan, whom I had spent time with in Wisconsin on two separate occasions, and
my Fulbright friends were all coming together, in Muscat of all places. To continue with the small world connections,
we went to meet a fellow Fulbrighter at a seafood restaurant after the
show. Traveling to new places is
beautiful, but spending time with good people in those new places is most
beautiful of all.
Day 5: The Souk and the Airport
On our fifth and final day, we went to Al Mutrah Souk in Muscat and bought ourselves some souvenirs and trinquets. I purchased a silver khanjar necklace char, which I ended up putting on the the same chain as another charm that has my name in Arabic. I wear this necklace most days just to remind me of the unbelievably beautiful time I spent in Oman and to make sure that these memories are always near to my heart.
That afternoon, we headed to the airport where our good friend Abdullah met us. We bid him adieu, and then we bid Sultan Qaboos, whose pictures were everwhere, adieu as well. And then we left this beautiful country that in 5 days, we (or maybe just I...) fell in love with.
