“I like this place, and willingly could waste my time in it” – William Shakespeare
In our last entry we quickly tried to explain the Ramadan holiday in Oman. At the end of the month-long fasting period comes a holiday called Eid ul-Fitr. This is a brief period of family time and feasts to rejoice the end of Ramadan. The Sultan here decided to extend the holiday time to a week for all private workers and we took our cue and headed off camping with two Dutch friends and their visiting family members.
They had heard of a beautiful place called “Bar Al Hickman” that’s a little peninsula that juts off the east coast in the center of the country. Armed with directions from 2001 that consisted of “drive through a village till you see a cluster of trees, then head south across the desert until you hit the water”. Filled with doubt about these “insightful tips” we followed them and it was spectacular. 7 hours after starting out we hit the cluster of trees and got out our compass and drove through hard sand, soft sand, salt flats and small dunes until we saw the turquoise water and white sand beaches of our destination.
We spent three days in our chosen site with the vast desert behind us and the beautiful ocean water in front of us. Our interactions consisted of Pink Flamingos in the sky and in the water, Giant Turtles swimming in the water and Camels lumbering around our tents. Although the cyclone of last summer hit the area hard there were few remnants of damage, except for a fridge that was somehow plopped down in the middle of the sandy desert. Truly ironic as our cooler quickly ran out of cold we started eating foods of questionable quality towards the end our trip.
A hard life spent snorkelling, swimming, laying on the beach, playing desert bocce, star gazing, and enjoying our friends company. Alas, the week had to end and we got back on the long journey back the Muscat. Roads here in Oman are never dull as they are filled with goats, camels, wandering locals, racing cars, and over stuffed expats vehicles. The mixture of all of these keeps the entertainment comedic and is fodder for easy conversation.
As we head back to work we wanted to pass along our best to our family and friends and thank you for the emails and comments you’ve sent us.
“Eid Mubarak”
Friday, October 19, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Heroes in a half shell
We turtles don't know the meaning of the word 'defeat'.
-Leonardo (intellectual leader of TMNT)
Oman possesses one of the largest sites of migrating giant turtles in the world. Since both of us being massive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans we loaded up the car and migrated. A violent hurricane (cyclone here) hit the area last summer and we couldn’t get any news on the current conditions of roads or infrastructure. So in our infinite wisdom we shrugged our shoulders and drove. Travelling through dirt roads, around construction vehicles, sign-less routes and having no experience we were soon doubting our “wisdom”. We emerged on a newly paved dual carriageway with no lines or signs, that failed to appear on any of our maps. In this country where the labour speaks Hindi, the bosses speak Arabic and we speak English everyone just kept smiling and waving. We can’t understand each other at all but at the very least it was pleasant.
The road wound beautifully through coastal villages lined in tourquise water, by palm filed wadis, around roaming camels and dropped us off into the beautifully barren landscape of our destination. – Ras Al Jinz . Ras Al Jinz is home to over 20,000 migrating Turtles per year. The Giant turtles emerge from the sea in the middle of the night and haul their huge bodies (as big as 160 kg!) onto the beach and lay between 60 – 140 eggs at a time. They then spend the rest of the night digging a separate large hole in the ground to trick the birds, foxes and crabs that prey on the baby turtles. We camped beside the beach and watched them late at night as they crawled along the beach. We estimated 25-35 of these plodding creatures visited the beach through the night. (As a side note we didn’t see a single Hare challenging any of them to a “rematch”). At sunrise they were crawling out of the holes they created and “speeding” towards the crashing surf with baby turtles hurrying to reach the water.
On our way back up the coastal road we pulled over to speak with an old Omani man on the side of the dusty road. We was walking to a town that was a 2 hour drive from there. We exchanged smiles (a quick exchange as he had precious few teeth) he climbed in the car and gave us a tour of the coast – the extent of his “English” was town names and “this” as he pointed the way. In exchange for his help we exposed him to an array of music including Nellie Furtado and the Pussy Cat Dolls. We have cemented our place in an unfavourable afterlife I am sure. I may have seen a hint of a “cabbage patch” and “running man” combination in the rear view mirror but sadly I lacked the Arabic skills to ask him for any pointers.
We hope you enjoy the pictures and to all of you in Canada, Happy Thanksgiving. We’ll eat an extra Shwarma for you on Sunday.... after sunset of course.
-Leonardo (intellectual leader of TMNT)
"Tonight, I dine on Turtle Soup"
-Shredder
For the previous month here in Oman, and for Muslims around the world, it has been the holy month of Ramadan. Most stores are closed during the day, business runs painfully slowly and the streets are relatively empty as all devout Muslims abstain from food and drinks from sunrise to sunset. In Oman, it is illegal for anyone to be seen eating or drinking (Tina’s midday bake sale in front of the nursery school across the street was in poor, poor taste indeed).Through this time we have tried to get out of town as much as possible and take in the natural beauty of the country.Oman possesses one of the largest sites of migrating giant turtles in the world. Since both of us being massive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans we loaded up the car and migrated. A violent hurricane (cyclone here) hit the area last summer and we couldn’t get any news on the current conditions of roads or infrastructure. So in our infinite wisdom we shrugged our shoulders and drove. Travelling through dirt roads, around construction vehicles, sign-less routes and having no experience we were soon doubting our “wisdom”. We emerged on a newly paved dual carriageway with no lines or signs, that failed to appear on any of our maps. In this country where the labour speaks Hindi, the bosses speak Arabic and we speak English everyone just kept smiling and waving. We can’t understand each other at all but at the very least it was pleasant.
The road wound beautifully through coastal villages lined in tourquise water, by palm filed wadis, around roaming camels and dropped us off into the beautifully barren landscape of our destination. – Ras Al Jinz . Ras Al Jinz is home to over 20,000 migrating Turtles per year. The Giant turtles emerge from the sea in the middle of the night and haul their huge bodies (as big as 160 kg!) onto the beach and lay between 60 – 140 eggs at a time. They then spend the rest of the night digging a separate large hole in the ground to trick the birds, foxes and crabs that prey on the baby turtles. We camped beside the beach and watched them late at night as they crawled along the beach. We estimated 25-35 of these plodding creatures visited the beach through the night. (As a side note we didn’t see a single Hare challenging any of them to a “rematch”). At sunrise they were crawling out of the holes they created and “speeding” towards the crashing surf with baby turtles hurrying to reach the water.
On our way back up the coastal road we pulled over to speak with an old Omani man on the side of the dusty road. We was walking to a town that was a 2 hour drive from there. We exchanged smiles (a quick exchange as he had precious few teeth) he climbed in the car and gave us a tour of the coast – the extent of his “English” was town names and “this” as he pointed the way. In exchange for his help we exposed him to an array of music including Nellie Furtado and the Pussy Cat Dolls. We have cemented our place in an unfavourable afterlife I am sure. I may have seen a hint of a “cabbage patch” and “running man” combination in the rear view mirror but sadly I lacked the Arabic skills to ask him for any pointers.
We hope you enjoy the pictures and to all of you in Canada, Happy Thanksgiving. We’ll eat an extra Shwarma for you on Sunday.... after sunset of course.
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