al Areesh Camp, Wahiba Sands

(the two bumps far in the distance just below the sign: two camels!)

Before I start, I just want to say that our shipment of personal belongings has FINALLY ARRIVED!! It's been almost 3 months that we have "camped out" here in Muscat. No, it has not been too unbearable--everything we could possibly want or need is here and we have bought things as we have needed them, but MAN it is great to have all the kids' books and toys, and Kai's bike, and my boards... And our house here is not bad at all: three bedroom three bath two story with a nice big kitchen and a blossoming garden in the back. Well anyway, so you know we're fine and comfy; ON WITH THE UPDATE!!

Jebel Shams got us really hooked on getting out and about into the countryside of Oman, so on Saturday, when we returned to school (remember: weekends here are Thurs. and Fri!), Shawna noticed a flyer for a weekend special to the Wahiba Desert; how could I refuse??!! We've been wanting to hit the desert ever since I skirted the northern perimeter of it on the way to the surf, and returned with an amazing description of what I only thought was the Wahiba; little did I know!

The Wahiba Sands is an expansive desert region in northeastern Oman. You'd think it was barren, but it abounds with people and wildlife. There are, of course,
camels

and goats, but there is an abundance of birds and invertebrates there, and even a species of monitor lizard! Not too many trees though...

Thursday, October 13
We met the tour group at the US Embassy. As it turns out, we went with five other embassy families, including one of the head honchos with the Army! (His wife and I have started a writers' group with 3 other expats, one a published poet and novelist who is British but has lived here for 25 years, and an Omani--The Wadi Writers! Catchy, huh?) The tour guide, Salem, is an Omani rep. with the US Embassy; he's a really nice guy.
We left at 1 p.m. for the two hour drive to the camp, which, incidentally, is on the northern outskirts of the Sands. Along the way, we drove through the twisty, windy Wadi Mansah, a 40 km drive through the Western tip of the Eastern Al Hajar Ash Sharqi Mountains. If I had not been driving, I'd probably have been sick from all the twists and turns and rises and falls. We arrived to the Wahiba at about 3:30, after two brief stops.
Entering the Sands is amazing--the dunes rise up from the desert floor; there are dunes there with peaks of 300 meters! The perimeter is essentially a giant wall of sand through which we entered via a small pass. The dunes are hard to fathom.




At about 4:30, as the group was settling in, Salem (the owner and guide) rallied everyone who wanted to go dune bashing, taking the 4x4 vehicles through the dunes. Shawna did not think it would have been good for the kids (it turned out to not be so bad!), so she said I could go. I don't think Kai would have wanted to go in the first place--it was his first time to get to "surf" since we left Galveston (sorry, no pix coming down the "wave!):


Kai and Emma with my student, Elise:



Shawna and the kids relaxing while I bash some of the Wahiba!


What an experience! One of the families there was the Withers family, an embassy family whose oldest duaghter is in my AP 11th English class. So, I loaded up with her, her dad, Don, and some others, and we all hit the dunes! I could go into lengthy detail about the drive, but see the pix and use your imagination! Just know that I knew when the fun drops were coming when I could see the entire under carriage of the car infront of us!!

Overlooking the flatlands.



Top of the Wahiba!





The Final Descent--HOW STEEP IS IT? (and how far...)



Going Down...





We returned to camp after sunset, just in time for a delicious Iftar dinner.

A brief sidebar: Ramadan is the holy month for Muslims; it is based on the lunar calendar and is 11 days earlier every year. During this time, practicing Muslims fast all day; refraining from food AND water! (The devout do not even swallow their spit!) They do this as an inner and outward purging of their bodies: inward in that they "suffer" and can better understand the idea of sacrifice; outward as a way to symbolize their faith. They abstain from sex and practice a more peaceful lifestyle by choosing forgiveness and humility in times that may provoke anger. They wake up at 4 a.m., two hours before the daily fast is called, and eat breakfast. Then, at 6 p.m., they have the breaking of the fast with "Iftar" which is a huge multi-course affair.
After dinner, Kai and Emma played with Salem's two sons and all the other kids who went on the tour, and we finally went to bed to prepare for the next morning: Camel riding!

Friday, October 14
Emma, as usual, awoke at 5:30, and I took the opportunity to grab some coffee (mmmmmm, the kahla here is fantastic!) and nab some shots of her in the pre-dawn light:

Emma of the Sands!!





After a hearty breakfast (generous to westerners during fasting!), we went to the bottom of the hill that camp was based on and woke up the Bedouin boys who were offering the camel rides. Kai went nuts. Shawna and I EACH had to ride with Kai so he would be satisfied; Emma would not have any of it--she was too enthralled by the Bedouin women and their goods for sale:


Shawna, Kai, and the Camel





And... Brady, Kai, and the Camel





Emma, trying to "haggle a deal"


After a fun morning, we opted to skip the extension tour to Wadi Bani Khalid, an oasis swimming pool deep in the Hajar Ash Mountains but only another 45 minutes from where we were, and headed home.

We're hooked on the outings here. Just think for a moment: I've surfed waves that have rivaled anything I have caught anywhere in my life, we've seen the top of Oman, and we've bashed and surfed dunes in the desert--ALL within 4 hours from our house. We were planning a trip to Sri Lanka over Eid (the end of Ramadan and the Muslim Christmas), but we've decided to scout around here some more and save Sri Lanka for winter break (planning a 10 day outing there--great surf and mountains), and that's only a 5 hour flight! After all we've seen so far, creative inspiration is flooding out of both of us! I cannot stop writing and Shawna can't wait to get back into photography now that she has time. And we've still only scratched the surface of Oman.
Take care and I'll update you soon. I'm just realizing as I write that you have not even seen our house yet! Well, PICTURES TO COME! Stay tuned...

Jebel Shams and Niswa

OK, so I have not been maintaining this like I should have, but we've been busy and have not had a opportunity to get out...until this past weekend. October 5th marked the end of the first quarter, fall break, and the first day of Ramadan, so we decided to take a trip. Some friends, the Bagnatos, invited us to tag along on a three day venture out and about, to the "Grand Canyon" of Oman and a couple of neat smaller cities in the interior. And since the surf models were not looking promising, we decided to give it a go!
All we had heard about Jebel Shams to this point was that the campsite we would be staying at was surrounded by sheer cliffs and it would be very dangerous for our kids; moreso, we'd be nuts to take them. However, we spoke to another family going on the trip, the DuAimes(four families all together went), and they said it was nowhere near that bad...and we really wanted to get out and see the sights, you know?

Wednesday, October 5th
We loaded up the car (OH YEAH, we bought a really nice 4x4, a Mitsubishi Nativa--gray, cd player, lots of a/c) and headed out, south toward Niswa in the northern interior. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Muscat to the mountain, the tallest point in Oman. The drive up was intense once we headed UP. It had more winds, twists, and hairpin curves than Pike's Peak! Nobody got sick, but I was white-knuckled going up--most of the turns have either no guardrails, or rails about tire length...just the right height to trip a car but not stop it before it plummetted thousands of meters to the bottom. There were a great many goats and donkeys along the way; great thing to see as we were coming around a 90 degree curve (I believe killing a goat is still frequently punishable by death around here, or so I hear). The first 18 kilometers was paved highway (thank GOD, ALLAH, and all the brave souls who paved it!), but the last 20 was single lane dirt road. Gave the new ride a true test in handling (it passed!). We reached the plateau near the top and stopped at a set of cabins we'd be staying in for the night; the temperature was only about 25 degrees (you do the conversion!). The scene was unreal, and we were not even at the gorge yet! Jagged rock peaks jutting up all around us, and the summit of Jebel Shams overhead. We unpacked, fed the kids and trekked with everyone else to the closest trail head, about 2 kms away.
There is a village of goatherders at the entry to the trail that leads to the "rim walk" (see the poem I've included at the bottom of the blog). Who knows how long they have lived there, hundreds of years. There is an abandoned village and a terraced, hanging gardens about a mile of so down the trail, and it is believed these people are descendents of these more ancient people. Amazingly, the cliff village was only abandoned 10 years ago after water stopped flowing so regularly. Anyway, the goatherders at the trailhead are accustomed to "visitors" to the canyon and eagerly flocked to sell their woven goat hair wares. It was hard to escape them without buying anything--we bought a blanket and two keyrings! After being accosted by them, and having to subsequently walk though their village, we entered the trail of the rim walk.
Now the term rim walk in NO WAY is an exaggeration. The trail was not wide (a goat trail at the best) and sections of it skimmed a 1000 meter sheer cliff face. There was ridge reaching a few hundred meters above us, and below us, below the sheer face, was nothing else for another 1000 meters but space
(do any of you remember the cliffs in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Exactly the same.).
Fortunately, Emma was in a backpack on my back,
and Shawna and I had scared Kai into minding us unquestioningly (no "But Why?" questions out of him after he saw the drop!) We, ummm, enjoyed a nice walk with another family we traveled with, the Buckleys from Boston, and after about an hour and a half headed back "to camp". On the way back, we saw a most beautiful sunset.

We had dinner at the cabins and enjoyed the cold weather, around 12C (about 40F!)!! Never thought I feel cold in THIS country! Also, the stars were more amazing than I had ever encountered.

Thursday, October 6
The next morning we awoke to a most incredilbe sight--the clouds had sunk below the peak and were swirling around, boiling and roiling and churning out of the gorge all around us. Absolutely unbelievable to witness. The pictures do no justice.
We loaded up, not to quickly or eagerly, enjoying the crisp morning air, and headed to Bahla to try to find pottery and then to head to Niswa for the night. The drive down was just as sight-filled--it kills me to see goats in the tops of trees eating leaves!
We found nothing but the fort in repair and a kiln-like heat in Bahla, so with the kids being tired and we were yearning for a pool, we hit the Falaj Daris Hotel in Niswa. WOW, this place was very nice, as was the price for the night. We swam and enjoyed a bar-b-que dinner by one of the two pools and relaxed till our hearts' content, and made plans to go to the Niswa fort and the souq (pronounced sook)on Friday.

Friday, October 7
Early rise to catch the all you can eat buffet at the hotel (sounds swanky, but it was equivalent to about $80 for all meals--diners and breakfasts--and the very comfortable room)and set out for the "Animal souq",
an auction of goats and cows right next to the HUGE Fort of Niswa (at one time, Niswa was the capital of the northern Oman province). Kai and Emma went nuts with the animals, and friendly Omanis let Kai pet their goats. There was alot to see and take in there: people peeling hides from dried skin, people haggling, watching out for spooked cattle, looking at oggling European tourists,
and smelling the smells of the animals and the scents wafting out from the spice and fruit souq. The animals were novel and all, but we ventured on.
Inside the "Food souq" were fruit stands and spice stands
and further on were arts and crafts and pottery

and more goat blankets (glad we bought ours when we did--they gouge the price at the bottom of the mountain!). We leisured around for awhile, then decided to head back to Muscat to rest before school the next day. It was a fantastic taste of an Oman we did not anticipate. Mascat can get so hot that it is hard to look past it and anticipate a worthwhile adventure "in the desert"!

Whatever you know from inquisitive research or don't know because you are relying on us to inform you, know this: Oman is amazingly diverse. Sure, there's alot of desert, but we drove through wonderfully green oases, and the geology is utterly profound; rocks shoved straight up out of the ground millenia ago and forming almost inconceivable formations of mountain and butte and cliff and valley. At every turn of the road we have entountered unique and breath-taking views from the bottoms of wadis and the tops of vast vistas. Moreso, the people are beautifully friendly.

In the trips we have done so far, and in our day to day living in Muscat, we have not felt the slightest threat or even received a derisive glance. People have been patient with us (my functional Arabic is getting better because I try and people see that and help me). Also, people are not out for themselves all that much. For example, I have seen Omanis leave their cars running, unlocked and abandonded to keep the a/c running while they shop during the busiest time of the evening! The only time you have to have caution is driving on the road--people have not been driving for too long here; it's like being on the highway with a bunch of newly licensed 16 year old speed freaks!
We are heading out to gain another insight this weekend: the Wahiba Sands desert. We'll be staying in camp at the base of huge dunes and riding camels with the Bedouin peoples of the Great Sands of Oman! Stay tuned...

P.S. Here's the poem!!

Goat People of the Tourist Mountain

They were herders, weavers
most of whom had never seen
the bottom of the mountain—
skin stretched taut as the sheer cliff faces
with all the rifts and crags to complete the parallel
and teeth like the rocks they walked upon
brown and
broken;

eyes wild as their scrawny cattle
(you know what they say about people
and their pets…)

yet clear, mystical eyes
that have not grasped history
as it’s roiled below like swirling morning clouds
through the gaping wadi-of-all-wadis
yawning before them

not mad, savage eyes, but without
twentieth century civility

not broken nor hungry nor death-led eyes, but with
a loss for what is expected of them
in a world hardly comprehended

only the rise and fall of the sun and the moon
only the weave of their goat hair goods
have defined them for an eon.

They scrambled through holes of entryways
from out of rustic rock house/boxes

thin, crisp, shriveled
tumbling like leaves blown
across a dusty Purgatory
toward neither Heaven nor Hell
for their god had not yet decided their fate:

sweep them with ease into the abysmal crevasse
allow them to squeeze more water from stale rocks

freeze them with midnight winds, or
bake them in midday heat

the merciless goat-god, deity of these cliff people,
ruler of their time and fortunes
only gave them the moment at hand
and us—the prospective customers

It was quite hard to grapple with the fact that
National Geographic had been right all these years…

More so though, it was numbingly humbling to watch
the macabre shuffle to peddle their primitive wares
as they amassed, flanking us from all sides—
the eagerness in their faces, the desperation in their voices
blankets and sandals and key rings
bulking and bulging their meek and slighted frames

and all the more moving to see
as we rescinded from the sullen scene
tucked away in the back of one of the rock-box/houses
the 27” color screen t.v.
that flashed dancing images, hypnotic mind-numbing moving pictures
of modern war and political corruption, of
jellifying reruns of flat-humored sitcoms
and jaded news reports and consuming ads of consumerism

into those eyes—
magical images intangible,
unfathomable to call real.