"The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hands of man".
- Author unknown
Having lived in this country for the past two years we occasionally find ouselves driving by sights, people and events that previously seemed so exotic to us. We have officially confirmed with our school that this year will be our last and we are determined to take none of this time for granted. Although the title of this blog is inspired by our most recent camping experience we have always felt this way about our host country. It has been a busy month and this blog attempts to recap it.
Earlier this month Joel finally hiked a trail we had heard of through friends. The hike is called "The Chains" and is named quite literally for the chains found on the hike that are used to climb a small rock face. This worried me as the last chains I used involved locking my bicycle up in the 2nd grade. Waking early in the morning a couple of vehicles set out and reached the starting point a few hours west of Muscat. The walk took us through the base of a Wadi and consisted of short undulating portions followed by sections filled with water. Additionally the nesessary use of the chains added to the uniquenes of the hike. A team of middle aged men struggling over rocks and wobbling up chains surely must have been hilarious to any villager passing by.
Having heard of a beautiful wadi that we were yet to explore deeply we headed out to Wadi Tanuf a few weekends ago. At the mouth of the Wadi sits the ruins of a mud bricked city that was bombed out in the mid 1940's. As it was still roasting hot we decided in our wisdom to hike up the side of the Wadi until we found a cool enough altititude. So we hiked up and in late evening we found a cave that previous shepards had cleared out. Well, this looked perfect. We set up camp and revelled in our stunning view. As the sun fell and the darkness surrounded us so to did the mosquitos. The buzzing swept over us on all sides and we were done for. Swelteringly hot and covered in mosquitos we tried to escape but it was too dark to climb down. So we sat, sweating and itching waiting for our bright idea to end. On a positive note there are a swarm of mosqutos fat and happy on our blood. You're welcome.
This year we decided to spend our Canadian thanksgiving at home and help spread some Canadiana around Mucat. Having attended a thanksgiving dinner on Thursday evening we hosted our own on Friday. Sadly, no Turkey was available so our dinner meat consisted of Rotisserie chicken. I gamely felt that it would be appropriate to slaughter a goat for such an occassion but I was wisely overruled. All the other fixings were present so our patient guests looked past it.
This past weekend we just got back from a fantastic trip down the coast. Our friends Keith and Pat had not seen the nesting Green turtles along the coastline. We were interested in going again and wanted to find a new location we had heard about. As we got to the sparsley populated coast we consulted our directions - follow the faint tracks to the left 12 kms after the turn. Nice. We followed the tracks and they lead up and up and up over the rocks towards the ocean. Sure enough we wound our way to a beautiful lookout point but well above the beaches we had intended to find. Two fishermen were tying their nets nearby so we approached them for directions. In my broken Arabic they understood what we wanted to find and hopped in their truck and lead us to a stunning beach hidden behind the cliffs. At the beach we met a few kids that assured us (again using shamefully poor Arabic) that this was a beach that Turtles frequented.
To say this was a great campsite would be an understatement. The white beach was entirely surrounded by red sandstone cliffs and filled with deep bunkers dug by nesting turtles. At one end sat a sandstone ledge overlooking the sand a mere 2 feet below. We set up on the sandstone and anticipated the evenings activities.
In the early evening we sat at the edge of the shoreline as the waves rushed to our feet. There was no moon, and a blanket of stars covered us. The water was filled with phosphorescence that created a glowing, illuminated body of water that crashed brightly lit, gentle waves towards us. We sat contemplating the beautiful view as giant shadows began to emerge from the water. The 500 pound turtles crawled up at a distance from us and began digging their nests for the night.
* Turtle photo from previous spot
We sat there taking in this strange beach, in this little-known country, watching a flourescent sea crash at our feet, under a stunningly star filled sky surrounded by giant creatures climbing ashore to lay their eggs. We couldn't help but think that this may be the only place in the world where we could have an evening like this all to ourselves. At any rate, we will convince ourselves that it is and attribute it to the Magic of Oman.
We are looking forward to taking in as much as we can in the time we have left in this special place.
