Oman delighted us with beautiful mountain scenery, wild camping possibilities and bright night skies. We so much enjoyed Jebel Shams and the Jebel Al Akhdar regions. Our most surprising stay was at the Jabreen fort where after we spent the night in its parking, at 6am we thought we were woken up by the ticking of a bird on the window, which turned out to be the guard of the fort bringing us tea! We visited Nizwa, drove to beautiful landscape and had some good local food.
We had all the time been eating at places tended by Bangladeshi or Indians and we had questioned what real ‘Omani food’ was like. It seemed that we had been eating it all along! Simple staple of rice, we often ate it with Kingfish. Our bodies were happy.
From the Jebels to Muscat, where we spent some time to get TLC in better shape. Our car desperately needed a service and so we visited the Toyota Spare Parts Centre as we did the local well-known garage which changed the oil, oil filter and fuel filter. In front of the Centre, Saeed changed himself the part of the air pipe and put in the new air filter.
We also enjoyed the opening at the Bait Muzna gallery which we had been invited for, as well as a delightful stay with a special friend while we had the chance to see each other.
From here, our journey led south, leaving Muscat for a small fishing village, unfortunately not fit for wild camping; continuing our route, we found a place to spend the night. One time we even lowered the tyre pressure and went onto the beach, driving through a small local settlement; very curious people, touching the car, the wheel, the door, wanting to see inside, but also harmless. The next morning a glorious sunrise for Saeed, with the visit of a dumb young man who needed to make himself ‘heard’, so a distraction from the peace.
Two wadis on the way, Wadi al Shab and Wadi Tiwi, of which we made a point visiting Wadi Shab. Arriving towards the early evening had us ‘climb’ an off road a little further back in the direction of Qur’ran to stay the night on a plateau higher up and overlooking the Omani Sea. This on recommendation of one of the entrepreneurs in the wadi, who ran some dingies to take visitors across the pond so they could start their walk into the wadi. A good night’s stay where in the morning, goats, about a 250, passed our car on their way to pastures to graze. The stream of goats kept coming. Some stopped and nosed around our breakfast set up and the car, one even took an interest in how Saeed was brushing his teeth, carefully observing; others ran and jumped their way away from us. We had a wonderful morning.
On our way down from the mountain, we visited the tomb of Maryam, which was officially not accessible for visitors due to repair work, but while Saeed kept the guard talking, I went around and took some photographs. This was followed by our walk into Wadi al Shab, very touristy and maybe not what it used to be although still attracting many visitors. It was a beautiful walk into a gorge next to clear water, waterfalls, a few pools to dip into and typical vegetation of banana trees and date palms.
We continued our travels south along the coast, visiting the turtle research centre briefly although no turtles on the beach in late November. Oman is famous for its turtle rescue programmes and has several of the eight sea turtles hatch eggs on its shores. If ever you wished to volunteer, Ras al Jinz is the place to check out.
A dull stretch followed with a break at the rock garden in Ad Duqm. We met Paul and Andrew and Paul’s dog. Paul had lived in Oman for over 20 years, Andrew for almost four and his contract was ending. His family didn’t care for adventure outings, Paul did, so they had set of from Muscat for five days as there was National Day celebrations added onto a weekend. Paul had the same car as we have, just a year older, and he had roof bars. Saeed had a chat with him and obtained some valuable information, who knows what we might do. He also mentioned he had had already two punctures on this journey (Muscat to Ad Duqm approx 600km, where we had had none (London to Ad Duqm in Oman approx 25000km). When the two gentlemen drove away, we understood why;) as Paul’s driving style was a bit more demanding on the car than Saeed’s.
Salalah was our southern wish to see and so we arrived at the newly, recently opened stretch of highway over the mountains along the coast, a beautiful part before entering the Salalah region. This is the area of Oman which is reached by the monsoon. The Kareef season passed at the end of October and we found a green region with a clear division line in the landscape where the dryness starts again and the rain hadn’t hit the land. Up to Jebel Samhan, seeing blowholes in action, walk under the Marneef Cave, discovering the frankincense trees, another of the items Oman is famous for; waking up with camels around the car wanting to have breakfast with us, finding great wild camping spots off the roads and driving till the Yemeni border to turn back.
For the journey back up north we chose a day of putting the foot on the gas and driving the main road through the desert, though not the Empty Quarter; being on our own with not the necessary precautions for desert driving didn’t tick the safety & security boxes. We made it to Nizwa and went up our favourite Jebel again for a peaceful night’s stay without a huge group of noisy Irish people who had come over from Dubai, nor a noisy Indian family making dinner and leaving their rubbish while we were going to sleep, such as happened the first time we went up Jebel Shams. It was much colder now, almost three weeks on and we were heading back to the UAE and subsequently Iran.
Travelling further north into the direction of the Fujairah border, we stayed a night in a wadi, normally not recommended as can be flooded in no time, we trusted the blue skies. While cooking, Saeed had a look around and discovered we were in a place which could belong to someone, seen the path a bit higher up, the confinement for animals and the little hut he noticed. A herder with goats passed at a distance just far enough from us to stay out of sight, but to hear them moving along while he was talking to his animals.
Arrival at the Fujairah border was a confusing situation. We received an entry stamp and were asked to go to the office next door. Something was strange; I had thought to be at the Oman border, but with the UAE National Day celebrations on the TV, a family tree of the UAE Royals, and UAE scarves around the customs officer’s neck, it could hardly be Oman. Turns out it was the UAE border already and we had ‘missed’ the Oman exit. We had to go back to receive an exit stamp. However, just explaining this and sending us back didn’t seem to be the most common sense, as it also turned out that one of us hadn’t been exited properly from the UAE when we went into Oman. So it was a waiting game and an endurance of patience. Finally all was sorted (“We are here to help you, there is no problem, we just need to check with the border of exit and receive the necessary information.”), we drove back 1 km to find the Oman border post to receive our exit stamps and were then let into the UAE. National Day celebrations had Fujairah be clogged up with traffic and so we made our way back to the other side of the UAE and our first night’s stay. No air conditioning needed this time and the 24hrs cafe still there for a morning cup of tea.