Our first weekend in Oman

We went on our first camping excursion in Abu Dhabi this past weekend, under the guidance of the Meetup Group UAE Trekkers. At seven hours each way, the trip was a marathon of driving ("that was a great three hour drive," our trip leader blithely miscalculated, as we stretched our legs at 4 pm, having set out at 8 am). With only one night outside, the driving seemed a bit much. But it was a lesson in border crossing, and a tour of places we'll definitely want to revisit when we have a few days off to see the area properly. 

(Yes, that's Steerforth - after his first try at off-road driving!)

The interior of Oman looks a lot like the interior of Abu Dhabi - scrub land, sand dunes, and not much else (though Oman boasts some very tidy, fancy looking houses in the middle of nowhere, which set us wondering about what one would do each day as a well-to-do, yet isolated Omani). But Oman also has mountains - funny, curious uprisings that look rather like whale skeletons in some cases, and like cliffs plunked down in the desert in others.

And it has castles. Like really, really old castles. Between locals' hyperbole and our trouble translating the Islamic calendar to Gregorian years, we can't pin down their age...but are reasonably sure that they are somewhere between a few thousand and 11,000 years old. Anyway, we saw two castles.

Here is our first (very near Wadi Damm, where we camped). Nick briefly took up residence.

The second castle we visited was under renovation, the Omani man employed to keep visitors out let us in and gave us a tour for a small tip. He explained that the castle was occupied by two families who got along, until they didn't. They ended up fighting each other, then abandoning the castle after it sustained irreparable damage. It was rediscovered in Islamic year 1375 (November 4 is the beginning of year 1435 -- happy new year!).

This castle's buildings are a mix of Persian and local architecture. They are made out of the rock mixed with straw -- even in these ancient structures you can see the straw in the walls.



Near our camp, we saw the beehive tombs. Not much is known about them, but apparently thousands of them have been discovered, strung over the hill sides. These ones were particularly impressive, because of the funny, jagged jebel (mountain in Arabic) in the background.

The rocks in Oman were wonderfully varied, and made us want to learn more about rock identification (something that always seemed a bit too dull to be memorable before). At the tombs, it seemed as if every nearby rock was a fossil - we saw leaf-like prints, shells, and funny textures.

Even the caterpillars are orange!

Once we got to the Wadi, we saw rocks of even greater varieties. There were still fossils galore, but there were also zebra rocks, black rocks with big stripes of quartz running through them at regular intervals. And there were the sandy rocks that make up the California cliffs....and there were jagged, redder rocks that looked almost like hardened mud. And there was also mud...lots of it!




We went for a run, and then clambered up to the biggest pool we could find and went for a swim. The rocks were slippery, so the easiest way in was to make a big jump off a rock, about a meter high. It took Nick a while to be reconciled to this method. It was a lovely pool - a waterfall on either side of a deep, greeny-blue swimming hole in the hollowed-out rocks. We didn't end up taking pictures of our swimming hole, but this one (from a nearby canyon) looks rather like it.

When we got back to camp, dinner and a sky full of stars were waiting for us.



On the drive there and back, we were delighted with many run-ins with camels.

There were real camels, grazing in the scrub lands on the sides of the road....there were herds of camels right at the Abu Dhabi side of the border, in some kind of camel farm....and there were camels getting transported....all of which made us very happy. We have a tourist's delight in seeing camels in any and every context.

We also learned the relative confusion of border-crossing here, which probably accounted for an hour or so of our trip each way. To cross into Oman, we had to leave Abu Dhabi - pay, get passport stamps, get our car vaguely looked at and waved through. Then, we had to enter Oman - that's right: pay, get passport stamps, get our car vaguely looked at and waved through. On the way home, there was the added necessity of showing that we had previously entered Oman (people have nightmare stories of too-faint entrance stamps that officials won't acknowledge) and exited Abu Dhabi. Contrary to the signage, the process was anything but peaceful.

Next camping trip will definitely be on the Abu Dhabi side of things - we've got some good tips to go to Wadi Kitna next time, which has a cave!