Tag Archives: February

Oman Day 7 – Back to “civilisation” with a bump

Wednesday Feb 27. So this was it – our goodbye to the camps that the Hud Hud Travels team had so splendidly set up and run just for us – sad in a way, but holding out the tingling anticipation, at the end of the day, of:

getting online
unlimited running hot water
unlimited electricity

I may not be as jaundiced about camping as I was earlier in the week, but still my heart leapt at the prospect of all of the above.

However, there was packing to be done and breakfast to be had before we said our goodbyes and headed off for the day’s adventures. These largely centred around a drive over the Hajar mountains, widely touted as the most scenic drive in these ‘ere parts. Touted correctly, too, in my opinion. The road itself is a bit of a bone shaker

(and should not under any circumstances be undertaken in anything but a robust 4×4 – see later) but offers some really spectacular scenery.

You’ll notice in the last of these that there’s a village nestling among the savage scenery. This, and others, are inhabited by people who have lived in the Hajar mountains for generations. For them, life is simple, spelt t-o-u-g-h, but it’s one they know and when the government, in an enlightened attempt to make life better for them, builds an entire village for them

the uptake is quite low, according to Rashid. However, the younger generation are more prepared to move and so eventually social housing projects such as this may well be fully populated, and the problems of delivering water, electricity and life’s other essentials to the remote areas of the Hajar mountains may well diminish.

At the high point of the drive is the Salma plateau. If you want my opinion, it’s a bit up-and-down to be credibly called a plateau

but I suppose everything’s relative. Anyhoo, the most interesting feature of the plateau are the “beehive tombs”, some 28 of which can be found here, with many more in other locations such as Al-Ayn and Al Khtum.

Above are two of the well-preserved ones, but many have decayed. The workmanship on them is quite remarkable.

Jane crawled inside one to see what it was like inside.

As you continue the drive, you can look back and see the ones which have survived over the centuries.

On we drove, enjoying the spectacular mountain scenery.

until we came to a village nestled in the middle of all this rockery!

The question naturally occurred to me – why the actual do people set up a habitation in such remote parts? Rashid’s answer was simple – they found water, and had developed skills in locating sources of water which enabled them to perpetuate this life, tough as it is. This village is called Qorun (I think) and, indeed, is centred around a well.

Above you can see the tanks to which well water is pumped before being loaded on to the water trucks for distribution to the remote parts of the village and other mountain sites, too.

A diversion was provided by a baby donkey, who wondered if we might have some food.

There are wild donkeys in the mountains, but also some which are owned by villagers, along with goats and sheep. If you look in detail at the layout of the village, you can see where the animals are kept.

Theirs are the shelters extending out from caves and hollows higher up the rocks to centre and right of the picture above – but those used to be the actual domiciles of the villagers themselves in times gone by!

After a while we reached the top and crossed over to the point where we could see the coast, and we stopped for lunch in front of yet another stunning view.

(The faint line across the middle is actually the horizon, with the ocean meeting the sky.)

Rashid spent some time explaining elements of the view to us, whilst around us there was a certain amount of wildlife activity. We were inspected by goats

donkeys

and, delightfully, Egyptian vultures.

(we think we spotted a Turkey vulture as well, but are not entirely sure. It’s amazing that Oman has to import its wildlife from other middle eastern countries, don’t you think?)

Lunch over, we made the descent to the coastal plain. This is where a 4×4 – and an experienced driver like Rashid – becomes essential, as the road is incredibly steep in places – difficult to convey photographically, but here’s my best shots.

We saw a few more features on the way down: a face in the rocks;

the caves where mountain people used to live;

and another government housing project intended to encourage these folk to live in better accommodation which so far languishes mainly empty, since the people refuse to move.

We finally made it down to the coastal plain and spent a few minutes cruising the (lovely, smooth, tarmac) coastal road near a town called Fins looking for gazelles, since this is the coastal end of a reserve called Ras al Shajar. We saw a few, but they’re quite shy, so I have many photos of their back ends as they ran away.

Then Rashid took us to see something that is, on the face of it, a bit strange – a Frankincense tree. It was rather marvellous to see something in real life that I had previously only come across as a biblical reference. So here it is – the only Frankincense tree in northern Oman:

There are, Rashid told us, many in southern Oman, around Salalah, but this is the only one in north Oman. I’m not sure I can understand why people haven’t taken cutings from it to make other trees (because you can see where cuttings have been taken), but there we are. Rashid also told us about male and female Frankincense. Looking closely at the tree, this is a patch of female

and this of male

They are subtly dfferent in the scent they produce, apparently, but I’m only a bloke so I don’t really understand these things. The tree was in flower, so here’s your chance to see Frankincense flowers.

Our next tourist stop-off (because by this stage I’d begun to feel that we were ticking the boxes – gazelles, tick, Frankincense tree, tick) was Hawiyat Najm, or the Sink-hole park. There’s maybe nothing unusual in yer average sink hole, but this one is slightly unusual in that it’s fed by both fresh water, from the mountains, and salt water, from the sea. Anyway, there are steps down into it and you can go swim in it if you like – after you’ve paid to get in, of course. Like Wadi Bani Khaled, this is very much a tourist spot, but it’s quite striking.

So there we were – all the boxes ticked and it was finally time to go to the hotel which would be our home for the next four nights – the Chedi, in Muscat. This is a seriously posh joint and I’m entirely pleased to report that we were upgraded to one of their Executive Suites, and so have separate bedroom, bathroom, terrace and lounge, which is where I sit and type, for these blogs don’t write themselves, you know. Jane has pointed out that all this luxury seems a bit fake after the gritty reality of life in the mountains or desert. I kind of understand what she’s trying to say, but I’ll grab that unlimited electricity and hot running internet with both hands and be grateful.

Tomorrow, we get to tour the highlights of Muscat, so tune in to the next installment to find out how that went. ‘Bye for now!

Oman Day 6 – Wadi View!

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Tuesday Feb 26. After a good night’s sleep, lulled by the song of our crickets, we found that the wind, and its accompanying flying sand, had dropped somewhat: so the only hazard we had to deal with over breakfast was the flies, who fancied a share of our fare.

Apart from covering the food, another way to discourage them is to burn Frankincense; the scent seems to keep them away. The breakfast was, as all meals at the Hud Hud camps, excellent, and so we set out for the day feeling replete.
On the way out we passed a goat farm where the goats were all trooping along for their morning drink.

As we exited the desert, it was interesting to see just how clear and sharp was the delineation between it and not-desert – you see flat flat flat flat – desert,

alongside which is a stern warning!

Frankly, I’m not sure how they’d know if you popped in and took a couple of truckfuls, but anyway….a longish drive back into the mountains took us to the outskirts of the village which takes its name from one of the most popular wadis in the area, Wadi Bani Khaled.

Before we took a walk along the banks of the wadi, Rashid took us off road to see it from above. The view over the village is quite striking

but the view of the wadi itself from even higher is, I think, the most spectacular view of the holiday so far.

The photo hardly does it justice; the contrast between the ruggedness of the rocks, the way the village nestles among them and the greenness of the wadi below makes this absolutely remarkably to stand and see. Even Rashid was struck by it

although his mate appeared to have his mind elsewhere.
It looked deserted from up there. We went down to discover that the parking was nearly full and that there were hordes of people heading up the wadi. Bloody tourists, giving tourism a bad name. However, it was a nice enough walk up the wadi, which has several irrigation channels running off it, obvs – the Omanis are vigilant in finding ways to get water to where it’s needed.

After a short walk, you arrive at a couple of pools

and you begin to realise the extent to which the area has been set up for tourists

with specially-installed viewpoints and also a restaurant, on the left in the picture below.

The restaurant serves a mean lemon-and-mint juice, and Jane reported herself satisfied also with the watermelon juice. The juice stop gave us a nice view of people having a nice time.

It’s then possible to walk a little way further up the wadi, where you can see pools that people can paddle or swim in.

though, this being where it is, there are some caveats about dress

(which were being quite widely ignored, sad to say; bloody tourists again, eh?).
Beyond that the path gets very rocky and in places slippery, so we didn’t go much further. on the way back, Jane got a fishy pedicure:

which started off apparently being very ticklish but soon became quite addictive. There was certainly one chap just up from where Jane sat who had been there with his feet in the water for quite some while.

After we’d exhausted the entertainment possibilities we headed off for lunch. The path beside the wadi passed a couple of mango trees, both magnificently in flower.

We’d enjoyed Wadi Bani Khaled, but at the same time found it slightly weird to have such (relatively speaking) naked pandering to tourism after all the other, less exploited places we’d visited. As our late neighbour Cyril used to lament, tourism is ruined by tourists, and this was the first inkling we’d really had about the encroaching effects of tourism in Oman. It’s an important industry, and the country needs to develop and grow it; but the downside is that nature will get built upon. Let’s hope that the Omani government will try to ensure that tourism development is done in the best possible taste.

Lunch was as usual an excellent picnic courtesy of our Hud Hud chef. After that, we headed back into the desert. En route, we saw the extent of the date palm plantation outside Biddiyah. The water supply that feeds it means it can spread until it butts up hard against the desert behind it.

The object of going back into the desert was to visit Said’s gaff to gain a little insight into the bedouin culture. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but in the event it turned out to be a sizeable room, constructed in a traditional manner out of date palm trunks, stalks and leaves. That sounds insubstantial, but, as you can see from the picture below, it is a sizeable and robust fabrication. As you can also see from the cars parked outside, we weren’t the only visitors.

Half of the room is given over to carpets upon which coffee and dates are served to seated groups of visitors.

and the other half to, well, stuff – artefacts and domestic things, some of which are for sale and some of which aren’t.

To give you an idea of the construction, here are close-ups of the ceiling

which is date palm leaf stalks, and the walls

which are also date palm stalks, but with the leaves left on to provide a fibrous surround.

Our stay there was reasonably short, and we headed off back to the Wahiba sands to get back to camp in time for sunset.

En route, we saw several things worthy of a photo: some opportunistic goats grabbing an illicit snack;

racing camels being taken back to their farms after exercise;

and some more hazards on and off the road (which carries right on towards Muhut until it suddently stops being a road and deposits you onto flat sand, at which point you are on your own – further underlining the need to make sure you’re properly prepared for desert travel).

We also stopped off to allow me to try for some arty shots of dunes

To get to a decent viewpoint for the sunset, we piled into the car (taking an extra member of the camp staff with us to help dig us out in case we got stuck on a dune somewhere) and Rashid took us dune-bashing via a circuitous route to the top of a dune overlooking a valley and served coffee whilst we awaited sunset.

The sunset itself wasn’t particularly spectacular, but the location was very zen.

When we got back to camp, we had the usual excellent dinner and, while Patrick and Jane went off to hunt more scorpions, I set to to trying to get some images of the stars. I got some stills which were rather ho-hum, and then set a timelapse going. Again, it’s nothing too dramatic, but it looks like some aeroplanes came through, (I originally thought they might be shooting stars, but I now doubt that):

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016) on Feb 28, 2019 at 5:43am PST

After all that excitement, since we were due to leave camp the following morning, there was nothing for it but to try to finish off the gin we’d bought on arrival in Oman. Patrick manfully stepped up to the plate to help us out and by hook or by crook we finished it off with just about time for a reasonable amount of sleep before having to face the next day, which is, of course, covered in the next gripping installment of this blog, where I hope we’ll meet again.

Oman Day 5 – Just Deserts

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Monday 25 Feb. Today was spent transferring to our final camp, in the Omani desert (Wahiba sands, to be more precise). The first part was a reversal of our way in over the salt flats, obvs. We passed the incoming Hudhud truck, which was there to take away the beach camp which had been our home for the last couple of days.

Then we joined the Salalah-Muscat coast road, which I had expected us to follow for a long distance to take us round to the north of the desert that lies south of Muscat. But no; we linked up with Said, a pal of Rashid’s who is bedouin and hence who knows his way around the desert, so that he could take us on a short cut across the sands.

En route we encountered a pretty well-understood hazard of driving in Oman:

(remember the sign from yesterday?) and also unusual-looking formations of what we thought was rock

but which turned out to be layers of sand which had been rained on, solidified and then covered in more sand and rain and once again solidified. Striking, but actually very soft and crumbly.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the desert is, well, deserted. And it has to be said that there can be long distances between highlights; but highlights there were.

The first one was a bedouin settlement. Not tents and camels, but a collection of shacks in which they live

this settlement, called Juraywah, even has a school, which you can see in the background here:

Rashid debunked any idea we might have had about Bedouin being a separate race who lived an ancient and nomadic life among the dunes, carrying their tents and camels with them as they moved. “Bedouin” simply means “nomad”, and today’s bedouin, who are mainly found around Oman and the UAE, are nomadic, but largely between two established bases – the desert in Winter and the coast (as here) in Summer. Rather than their camels transporting them, they nowadays drive the camels in 4×4 trucks (remember my picture from the Days 3 and 4 post?)

It turned out that Said had his own reason to cross the desert – he was taking equipment out for another (non-Hudhud) camp. So Rashid helped him and some mates load up.

Amazingly, everything fitted!

Then we were off into the unforgiving sands of the desert, which have a variety of colours depending on age and mineral content.

We had to stop so that Rashid could let some air out of the tyres, to make the journey safer and more comfortable.

As we bowled along there were a surprising number of distractions from the landscape, which was pretty uniform all the way to the horizon.

with, threading through it, tracks that only the bedouin can confidently navigate.

For example: goats;

bedouin habitations;

a couple of Pakistani guys who have lived in the desert for four months whilst digging a 50-metre deep well, paid for by the local people to replace an older nearby well that was no longer useable;

a mosque;

in fact there are several in the desert, each of which has water for travellers and their animals.

This was actually our lunch stop, under one of the only trees available for shade.

after which the desert carried on in its relentlessly sandy fashion.

until we reached the first outposts of “civilisation” – a tourist camp.

We made a small detour to see the father of our bedouin guide, Said, who is devoted to his racing camels.

I took this photo to record the distinctive way that Said’s father stood while chatting to Rashid.

Soon after our little detour we were running through Biddiyah, prior to turning off once again into the desert, in the Wahiba sands area. The wind was really whipping up the sand – not quite a sandstorm, but certainly enough to make it uncomfortable standing outside.

We arrived at our camp soon after.

If you look at the dunes on the right above, you can see the wind whipping the sand up – and sand was everywhere.

Camp manager Patrick, waiter Janaka and cook were the same team as we had looking after us in the moutains, so a joyful (and warm!) reunion ensued! The tents this time, fittingly, were bedouin style, made of woven sheep and goat hair.

and perfectly comfortable (of their sort).

Patrick reminded us to be careful about our footwear. He had checked for scorpions and cleared the main camp area, but in any case, it was worth taking care and not walking around barefoot. Scorpions tend to bury themselves just below the surface of the sand, so it’s very difficult to see them. We went on a scorpion hunt later that evening and Patrick had with him a neat trick for detecting scorpions – an ultraviolet light, which really reveals them. So, for example, you might hardly notice one just below the surface

but he/she/it becomes much clearer under the UV light:

We found a couple of them around the site, a good reminder to take care. The pictures really are quite remarkable!

We had another splendid dinner, although we had to move the table into the majlis as the wind was still gusting and sending the sand flying. The camp crew fought a losing battle sweeping and clearing our bedroom and bathroom tents, only for everything in them to be covered in sand again in no time. After a couple of gins and a convivial chat with Patrick we retired to bed (along with a cricket or two, much to the surprise of the crew who have never had crickets in the desert camps before. Jane had to pursue and catch one of them twice before successfully ejecting it from our bedroom tent). I tried my hand at taking pictures of the stars, but I’d frankly had one gin too many and the best I can say is that lessons were learned for the following evening. I will post the results of those efforts, and the photos from the rest of the day in tomorrow’s blog post, which I hope you’ll want to read. See you there?