weekly photo challenge: hope

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postaweek2012, weekly photo challenge

Saturday, January 28:

For me, hope is about reaching for the sky, believing that nothing is impossible.  Hope is dreaming big, and sending these dreams, with faith, into a universe with no limits or boundaries.

I took this picture in July 2010 in Cappadocia, Turkey.  At sunrise, forty balloons lifted off and dotted the sky with Technicolor dreams. I was in one of them! This was the first time in my entire life that I traveled alone, and though I was really nervous about going solo, this trip ended up being the most amazing adventure I’d ever had.  This picture symbolizes my hope to be self-confident, to venture forth into the world whether I have anyone else with me or not.  To be a fearless adventurer, always.

hot-air balloons over cappadocia

I wrote a short story once that embodies this theme: The Red Star Sky.  Reach for the stars!!  Hope!  And keep the faith even when everything seems hopeless… 🙂

cooling off at wadi bani khalid ~ my sons bid adieu to the last of the wadis

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Oman, Travel

Friday, January 27:  This morning the boys and I leave Camp Al Areesh and head directly for Wadi Bani Khalid.  This is one of the greenest and most scenic wadis in Oman.  It has great swimming holes and picnic areas, so Omani families love to flock here on weekends.  I came here last on the National Holiday in late November, and it was packed!  This weekend, we’re lucky in that there aren’t many people.  We get to enjoy it in relative solitude.

the boys at the entrance to wadi bani khalid in oman

pools galore

I think the boys are getting a little homesick and are feeling tired of all our exploring.  They say, though they like it here, that all the wadis are starting to look alike.  One of my colleagues who has been in Oman for about 5 years has told me the same thing; eventually all the wadis start to look alike.  I felt this way in Korea about the Buddhist temples.  Once you’d seen one, you’d seen them all.  Though this is a beautiful wadi, and I was thrilled to see it the first time around, this time we’re all a little bored by it.  Or maybe we’re just weary from all our travels.

flowers in the wadi

We walk to the right of a series of large swimming pools and follow a rough boulder-strewn path for about 20 minutes to the deep part of the wadi.  At some point along the way, an Omani boy starts tagging along with us. He can’t speak much English so he just walks in silence.

Alex and a tempting pool

We end up at the Muqal Cave, which has a horizontal slit for an opening, sort of like a person’s mouth.  There is no way I will go into this cave, but the Omani boy encourages the boys to go inside.  None of them have flashlights.  I know the Omanis know all the ins and outs of their country, so I don’t worry they will get lost.  They all three duck into the mouth of the cave and don’t return for quite some time.  At one point I start to imagine the worst and I yell into the cave, only to be answered by dead silence.  I worry, I fret.  Then I hear voices and before I know it they are all ducking and coming out of the cave.  Apparently there is a large chamber inside, but they couldn’t really see anything because they didn’t have flashlights.  Hmmm.

adam ducks out of the muqal cave

We make our way back out of the wadi and since the boys are getting warm, they decide to take a dip in some of the pools.  They are surprised to find the pools are quite warm.  Apparently there are two sources of the water.  One source is from the Muqal Cave and is warm, the other water comes from the mountain and is cool.  They have fun splashing about and jumping in the water until Adam has a strange encounter where one Omani boy, a different one who joins us along the way, tries to pull Adam down to sit on his lap under a waterfall!!  Adam gets pretty darn peeved about this, pushes himself away and then high-tails it out of that pool.  The boy vanishes as quickly as he appeared.

adam takes a dip in the pool

We decide we’ve had enough swimming and traveling. We grab some lunch and fruit juice at the little restaurant near the entrance to the wadi and then head back to the car. The boys want to return to my flat in Nizwa, which they like very much for a home away from home.

the beautiful wadi bani khalid

We drive the long way back, nearly 3 hours, with only one stop.  When we arrive in Nizwa, we eat a yummy dinner at the Spicy Village and then take a long walk together under the Nizwa stars.

another view of the wadi

This is our next to the last weekend together and I have to return to work tomorrow.  I hope they’ll enjoy their last week hanging around in my flat and taking it easy before they head back to the USA on February 3.

leaving the last of oman’s wadis before their trip back home 😦

boys meet bedu at camp al areesh

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Oman, Travel

Thursday, January 26:  This morning we wake up at Christian’s house, where we spent the night after our late night at the Intercontinental in Muscat.  He conjures up a sumptuous breakfast of pancakes and eggs and then drives us to the GMC dealer so I can pick up my car.  This service is a killer; it’s the major service for 100,000km, and it costs me 240 rials!!! This is the problem with having an American car in Oman.  It’s not a common vehicle here, and it’s expensive.  I walk away in sticker shock, but at least I won’t have another service like that for another 100,000km!

alex & adam at camp al areesh

me with Alex

We go home, and to be honest the boys are not feeling so great after their wild night of dancing and drinking beer.  We laze about for a couple of hours, watching continuous episodes of Parks & Recreation and even napping.  Finally, around 3:30, we leave for Camp Al Areesh in Sharqiya Sands.  I’ve been warning the guys that we must make it to the camp by 5:00 to see the sunset in the desert, but I know that by leaving so late, we probably won’t make it.

We don’t.

the dining area at camp al areesh

The drive is a long one, 2 1/2 hours, and it’s not easy, especially once you get off the Nizwa-Muscat highway.   The road to Ibra, and ultimately Sur, beside which Sharqiya Sands sits, is not a good one:  two lanes with no shoulder and endless caravans of slow-moving trucks that need to be passed.

adam & alex in front of our barasti hut #55

Sadly, we arrive at the desert camp after the sun has set.  We move into our barasti hut #55, which is the only one left remaining in the entire camp because of a Mitsubishi Pajero group of off-roaders who have taken the camp hostage.  We’re on the outer fringes of the camp, but since we don’t plan to hang out in our room, I guess we’ll survive.  Adam thinks it hilarious that our hut is #55, as he’s seen a funny YouTube video about that number:  Schfifty Five.  Here is it for your, uh, enjoyment (??)…. 🙂

We load our stuff into our hut, remove our shoes and walk through the cool sand to the communal tent.  I’m always surprised at how refreshing the sand feels once the sun goes down.

inside of barasti hut #55

We hang outside for a while, looking at the stars and drinking tea, until the buffet is served at 7:30.  The food is great, as always, lots of vegetables and rice and fruit and hummus, which the boys love, and even lamb and chicken.  I load up on an eggplant vegetable dish that is so delicious I have to go back for more.

the Bedu singers

After dinner the Bedouin boys sing and bang out rhythms on their drums.  Their singing is more like a chant, but that doesn’t stop people from cavorting. Where there is rhythm, there is dance.  The mostly Indian Mitsubishi crowd is dancing fluidly and rhythmically, as Indians are known to do (at least in Bollywood movies!).  Adam is still in a partying mood after his first clubbing experience last night, so he dances away with the crowd, on and on, even after Alex and I decide to go early to bed; he wanders into our hut after the music stops around 1 a.m.

We don’t set any alarm in the morning but wake with the sun.  The breakfast buffet surprisingly doesn’t have any fruit, much to the boys’ disappointment.  Next stop: Wadi Bani Khalid for another day of exploring.

breakfast in the desert

the boys in muscat: an afternoon of shisha & a night of dancing

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Muscat, Oman, Travel

Wednesday, January 25:   Yesterday evening I had to drop my car at the GMC dealer in Karsha for the major (100,000km) service.  Since my boys are here visiting and we will be stuck for a day without a car, my friend Christian offers to take us to Muscat for the day.

Adam and Alex smoke shisha at Cafe Ziyara in Muscat

We get a bit of a late start but we go directly to Cafe Ziyara, a shisha bar in Medinat Sultan Qaboos with open-air seats outside, as well as an indoor cafe, for lunch and shisha. We order lots of hummus and bread and I order grilled halloum, a white, semi-hard sheep’s (or goat’s) milk cheese, similar to mozzarella, but not bland. Since it’s a beautiful day, we linger after lunch and smoke shisha.

my sons chillin’ at Ziyara in Muscat, Oman

The only thing we don’t like about this restaurant is the lack of a toilet within the facility.  Who ever heard of a restaurant without a toilet??!! Every time one of us has to go, we have to go search out a staff member, who escorts us to a totally unrelated building, and opens the toilet with a key!  Wow, this place needs to get with the modern times.

Christian and Adam at Ziyara

After a long while, we leave and head to Muscat City Center, where we shop in the Home Centre and the Carrefour.  Later, we head to Al Ghazal Pub at the Intercontinental Hotel, where we have drinks and the best shrimp tempura imaginable.  Later, after going to a quiet party at a house where some U.S. Marines live, we head back to the Intercontinental, where a Canadian band called Generation is playing.

me having a fun time with my boys and Christian

No one asks the boys for their IDs, and thus they’re able to drink a few beers.  It’s really fun for them, especially since they’re too young to visit bars in the U.S.  This is Adam’s first time in a bar.  The music and the crowd are great, and we all dance and dance till the wee hours of the morning.  I’ve never seen my own sons dance before, and I can tell they’re having a fantastic time letting loose.  Though I’m tired and want to leave long before everyone else, Adam and Alex do not want to leave and keep begging to stay until the band goes home for the night.  They are dancing wildly all night on the dance floor, looking like they own the place.  Very entertaining for me to see my boys, all grown up and having the time of their lives.  🙂

Cafe Ziyara, a nice place to while away the afternoon

a treacherous drive through wadi bani awf: a near-tragedy, the picturesque village of balad sayt & a glimpse of the infamous snake canyon

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Balad Sayt, Oman, Travel, Wadi Bani Awf, Western Hajar Mountains

Monday, January 23:  Today I tell my boys we are driving over the Wester Hajar Mountains on dirt roads, using my Oman Off-Road guide, from between Al Hamra and Al Hoota Cave in the Al-Dakhiliyah region to Rustaq in the Al-Batinah region.  I am a little worried about accomplishing this feat, but only because I have heard I “might get lost.” But since I have my trusty guide with a pretty detailed map and instructions, I  figure we shouldn’t get lost.   We will double-check all landmarks along the way and if we can’t find any one of them, we’ll simply turn around and come back the way we came. The plan is, once we get to Rustaq, to go visit the hot springs there and maybe make a quick stop at Nakhal Fort.

Our view at the top of the mountain before we almost go over the edge!!

the rough track down the mountain; you can see the road carved into the side of the mountain to the right…

My friend Adil, who I met at Wadi Bani Khalid in November, and who lives near Rustaq, drove over this road one afternoon and popped in, with all his friends, to pay me a visit in my old villa.  He made it sound like it was no big deal, just an hour and a half, he said, and only about 70km.  No problem.

another view of the hajar mountains, this time from the dirt track

Things start out fairly well, as we take the road toward Al Hamra, and then take a right on a road signposted for Hat and Balad Sayt.  This is a good tarmac road that climbs up the mountain in a series of switchbacks. At the beginning of this road, I think it says 38km to Balad Sayt. At the top of the mountain, right before the point where the map says the road turns to a dirt track, we stop at the viewpoint of Sharafat al Alamayn and get out of the car to see the spectacular view, considered one of the finest panoramas in Oman, across the entire Western Hajar and down towards the coast below.  The wind is blowing hard and the air is so frigid, we feel a little worried at this point that we haven’t dressed properly for this excursion.  It is freezing!!

the wadi bed at Wadi Bani Awf

We get back in the car and turn on the heat and start driving.  At the crest of the mountain, we see three bikers standing at the top, talking and checking their gear. Taking a break of some kind.  As we drive by, we all three look at them and wave cheerily.  The next thing we know, and not one of us sees this coming, we are bumping over a dirt road full speed ahead and heading toward a knee-high gravel embankment, more like a big bump, on the other side of which is a sheer drop-off.  “Watch out!!” the boys yell.  I feel it before I see it, the pavement giving way to dirt and gravel, because frankly I am just turning my attention from the bikers to the road.  I see what is before me and it isn’t good.  I turn the wheel toward the sheer rock wall of the mountain, away from what could have been a long precipitous drop to our deaths!!

the entrance to the canyon leading to Balad Sayt

Oh my god!!  I almost killed myself and my precious cargo, my two darling sons, who have entrusted themselves to my care here in Oman!  As soon as we can, we stop the car, and all of us take a deep breath.  We are shaken and looking at the treacherous road ahead, wondering if it’s wise to proceed.  We decide to go ahead, but slowly and carefully.

the view from the canyon to the wadi bed

We drive cautiously, using my 4WD numerous times to slow our descent down the steep-angled and bumpy dirt track.  Luckily, a kind of guard rail of sorts is all along the edge, really just a long continuous knee-high pile of gravel, which gives us some feeling that we’re protected from going off the edge.  I doubt that it would really stop my Terrain, however, from the pull of gravity and momentum if we lost control of the car.

the narrow canyon leading to Balad Sayt

It is a long and slow descent, the road worming its way down an almost vertical escarpment, with spectacular views all along the way.  These are the kinds of views that take your breath away.  We pass by the village of Hat on the right, with a big falaj that tumbles down the mountain.  We go through a very rough wadi bed, hard even on my Terrain, and pass two women coming from the opposite direction, from the Rustaq end of the route.  They warn, “It’s really rough going ahead.”  I say, “Oh no, it was really rough where we came from.  I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”

Alex sits on a rock to put his shoes on in the canyon leading to Balad Sayt

The thing we want to see most is the charming village of Balad Sayt.  Described in The Rough Guide to Oman as such: “Tucked away in the folds of the mountains, this Shangri-La-like settlement is one of the most famous traditional villages in Oman, although its size and relative modernity come as something of a surprise given the remote and inhospitable location.  The core of the village remains magical, however, with a picturesque pile of small houses, crowned with a tiny fort, sitting above a lush swathe of immaculate terraced fields.”

our first view of Balad Sayt after emerging from the canyon

a colorful door in the village

Oman Off-Road describes two ways to approach the village.  They recommend the approach by foot, because “your first views of the town will come after you emerge from an improbable canyon cleft – it’s like discovering a lost city, seeing Petra for the first time.”   Having been to Petra in November, and knowing just what it feels like to walk through a canyon and to come upon a hidden treasure, I can’t resist this approach.  So, near the wadi bottom, we find the cleft in the canyon, park the car, and climb up into it, following an Omani who we have seen gracefully gliding up into the canyon.

the charming Balad Sayt

It turns out there are many pools along the way that we must wade through.  I roll up my pants legs all the way to my knees, and they still get wet.  We have to wade through about 4 of these pools, some quite deep.  Finally, after quite an adventure, we arrive in the beautiful village, which is lovely but is not quite Petra!!  The actual view as you emerge directly from the canyon is not that magical, although after you’re well out of the canyon, we discover it is a totally charming little village.

the town of Balad Sayt sits in a bowl in the midst of the Hajar Mountains

We come immediately upon some Omani boys shooting a gun at a target and they let both the boys shoot the gun.  We then walk up through the village, where a young man comes out and introduces himself and then takes us on a tour through the village, beside the newly built mosque and through his own family’s plantation.  It is lovely, with terraced fields of crops set against the backdrop of the stacked village and the Hajar Mountains.  It sits in a bowl in the midst of the brown mountains, an oasis of lush greenery and golden houses.  Shangri-La.

the young man from Balad Sayt, Adam & Alex in Oman.

the new mosque is a bright spot in the village

After our walk, I tell the boys I will wait at the entrance to the village while they go back through the canyon and the pools and get the car.  The young man who has given us the tour offers to accompany them and show them the way.  I sit alone for a bit, but then several boys from the village join me.  They can speak just rudimentary English, or none at all, so we just take pictures of each other and sit in silence.

villagers from Balad Sayt

Finally the boys return with the car, and we take off for the second half of the drive.  The girls we met earlier were right.  This part of the drive is much more treacherous and scary than the first part!  We drive along a dirt road on which one side is a sheer wall of rock, and on the other side is a straight drop-off into a deep and bottomless canyon.  The views are unparalleled, simply spectacular, but driving the road is terrifying.

waiting with one of the villagers

We pass by Snake Canyon (Wadi Bimmah), which takes its name not from actual slithering reptiles but from the twisting shape.  The canyon is a popular destination for adventurous hikers, and supposedly involves daring jumps into rock pools and swimming through ravines.  Apparently a number of hikers have died here from raging torrents caused by rain in the mountains above.  I don’t think Snake Canyon will be a destination for me.

the exit to the perilous Snake Canyon

Later the terrain finally flattens out and we pass by Little Snake Canyon, another smaller cleft in the rock face which is apparently easier to navigate than Snake Canyon proper.

a waterfall in the plantations of Balad Sayt

By the time we finally get to Road #13, known as the Ar Rustaq-Nakhal loop, it is 4:30 in the afternoon.  We are too tired to search for the hot springs in Rustaq.  As a matter of fact, we don’t go to Rustaq at all, but head in the opposite direction, to Nakhal.  I want the boys to see Nakhal Fort, but sadly, it closed at 4:00, so we can only see it from the outside.

I love this little paradise in the middle of nowhere!

We decide we all are starving, as we haven’t eaten all day, so we’ll go directly to Muscat to eat at the Turkish House Restaurant, one of my favorite restaurants in Muscat.  We drive around and around in circles in Khuwair, and finally, by asking people walking along the road, we finally find it.  Though the boys are a little disappointed in the lack of vegetarian options on the menu, they do find a delicious hummus platter on the menu that they devour happily. Food is always a happy ending.

the drive out of wadi bani awf

an excursion with the boys to wadi tanuf

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Oman, Travel

Sunday, January 22:  Today we get a slow start, as we’re recovering from our 9-hour drive from Salalah yesterday.  All we plan for today is to go to Wadi Tanuf, the narrow gorge best known these days as the source of the popular Tanuf mineral water.  The water is bottled from a spring here and sold nationwide.

Christian, Alex & Adam at Wadi Tanuf

We invite my good friend Christian to go along.  He’s always lively and entertaining company.

goats in the village of Al Far

We drive on the Nizwa-Bahla highway till we see a brown sign that says Wadi Tanuf and take a rough track into the gorge for 5 km, with increasingly sheer cliffs looming alongside us.  We eventually get to Wadi Qashah and the village of Al Far, where we park the car and walk along the path and through the village. This little isolated village is fully inhabited by working Omanis living in small mud buildings. Colorful clothes are hung in the windows and dogs bark to scare us off. Several village folks direct us down the not-so-clear path down into the wadi.

the village of Al Far in Wadi Tanuf

Boulders galore… Alex in the foreground, Adam in background

Because of the huge boulders strewn all about, we start talking about the movie 127 Hours.  That film is about real-life canyoneer Aron Ralston, who became trapped by a boulder in an isolated canyon in Utah in April 2003, and was eventually forced to amputate his own right arm in order to free himself.  We keep saying, “You better watch out.  You may have to amputate your leg, your arm, your head, etc.”  Pretty goofy stuff.

Adam, me and Alex at Wadi Tanuf

Clambering over and under rocks is the order of the day, and we pose for lots of silly pictures and just enjoy the lush and dramatic setting and the lovely weather.  Finally, we return to the car and on the way out of the wadi stop on a huge boulder for a picnic of hummus, pita bread, fruit and tabbouleh.

silly posin’ at Wadi Tanuf

We return home, where the boys make lentils and rice for dinner and we all take nice long naps.

my fun-loving boys ~ Adam and Alex

the tomb of bin ali, museum of the frankincense land, plantations & farewell to salalah

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Oman, Salalah, Travel

Saturday, January 21:  Though I bought a “4-person” tent, it seems pretty doggone crowded in that thing when we wake up in the morning.  Of course we don’t have any cooking gear, so we pack up the tent and all our belongings and head to Mirbat to get some more of the yummy vegetable wraps we had last night.  Sadly, the restaurant is not open, despite its sign on the door stating that it should be.

the cemetery near the Bin Ali tomb

We decide first thing, in a unanimous decision, that we all want to go back to Nizwa today.  We will see a few more things around Salalah, and then we’ll drive in one fell swoop back through the Empty Quarter.

the glowing tomb of Mohammed Bin Ali

We leave Mirbat and make at stop at the tomb of Mohammed Bin Ali, an Islamic scholar.  It is actually a white mosque with twin onion domes built over a tomb.

I love the dramatic setting of this mosque

This mosque, set in a huge cemetery, is quite dramatic in its brown and green setting, with tombstones all around it.

love this tree in the foreground

The boys want to go inside, but we can’t find any lights inside and even using our phones, we can’t see much of anything.  We do however find a giant crab, alive and kicking, right inside the door of the mosque.

the cemetery around the bin Ali tomb

We drive back to Salalah proper because I want to go to the Museum of the Frankincense Land.  There are a set of ruins, Al-Baleed, that belong to the 12th century port of Zafar. From this spot, frankincense was shipped across the sea to India in exchange for spices.  The museum describes the area’s settlement since 2000 BC and displays the maritime history of the nation, including its current port projects at Salalah, Duqm (which should be the largest port in the Arab world) and Sohar.  One of the most interesting things I find in the museum are pictures of places in Oman, such as Nizwa – current photos juxtaposed with old photos.  It’s fascinating to see how undeveloped Oman used to be.   It’s actually quite an impressive museum.

Adam & Alex in front of the Museum of the Frankincense Land

Outside of the museum are 3km of landscaped walking paths.  It is really hot by the time we come out of the museum, so we don’t walk too much around the grounds.

a bird takes flight from the reeds in the grounds of the Museum of the Frankincense Land

On our way out of Salalah, we take numerous photos of all the plantations lining the roads.  This is definitely where all the greenery is at this time of year.  We will miss all the lush banana, papaya and coconut trees.

coconut plantations

We tackle the long drive back through the Empty Quarter, making a stop halfway for lunch at the Al-Ghaftain Rest House, the same place where we spent the night on the way down. The place is quite crowded, with all men as always, and the owner tries to get us to sit in the small and cramped “family” room, probably to get me, as a woman, out of the company of the men.  I am not happy about this and I say I do not want to sit in this room.  I want to sit in the large, open room with the big windows, not in some cramped dark room as if I am some unsightly beast.  It’s so irritating how men treat women in Oman.  I’m a Westerner so I don’t get this kind of treatment all the time, thank goodness.  When I do, I don’t like it one bit.

goodbye salalah!!

We continue our drive after this awkward lunch, arriving home around 9:00 pm to my flat in Nizwa.  Home SWEET Home!!!

salalah: from balcony-jumping to camping ~ with camels, travertine curtains & wadis in between

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Oman, Salalah, Travel

Friday, January 20:  We wake up in Salalah, capital of Dhofar, in the far southern reaches of Oman. The city’s colorful subtropical character derives from Oman’s former territories in east Africa, offering a taste of Zanzibar in the heart of Arabia.

Salalah

Salalah is famous for its plantations of coconuts, papayas and bittersweet tiny bananas.  Colorful fruit stands line the roads, offering refreshment for passers-by. Everyone has told me it is “so green” in Salalah, but others warned us that we shouldn’t bother coming here in the winter.  The time to come to this part of Oman is apparently during khareef, or the southeast monsoon, from mid-June to mid-August in Oman.  Numerous Omani friends warned me not to waste time coming to Salalah in the winter:  “Wait till khareef!” I heard too many times to count.  But frankly, this is the last time I will have off during this school year in Oman.  And when my summer break comes, a full 6 weeks of vacation time, I plan to spend two weeks in Greece and four weeks in America.  I won’t have time to come to Salalah during khareef!

Alex & Adam at the breakfast buffet at Salalah Beach Villas

Another colleague encouraged me to go during this break.  She said, “Who wants to go during khareef?  It’s like a steamy sauna, wet, hot and sticky.  The Omanis love it, but it’s much nicer in the winter.”

So, we are here now, in the midst of winter and it is most definitely NOT green!  Surprise, surprise!  The plantations are of course green, and there are smatterings of green here and there, but it doesn’t look like all the pictures I have seen.  I have to say I’m a little disappointed, as are the boys.  But the idea of being in a place where there are beautiful beaches smothered in rain and drizzle and fog, well that doesn’t appeal either.  Solution unknown.

Bananas!!!

So, if we can’t enjoy lush greenery, the next thing to do is partake in the fruit.  The boys do just that. Every time we encounter a breakfast buffet, here in Salalah or elsewhere, the boys demolish whatever fruit is offered, much to the dismay of the hotel staff.  Breakfast at the Salalah Beach Villas is no different.  The boys load up their plates with ALL the bananas from the buffet and gobble them down in minutes.  The other guests sadly have to do without.

boys on the balcony, preparing to jump

After demolishing the fruit, Adam goes up to our 3rd floor room and, looking over the balcony, sees that it is directly over the pool.  He wonders if he can jump into the pool from the balcony and the hotel staff tells him he can jump, but he should do so from the 2nd floor.  They provide him with a key to a second floor room, and Adam proceeds to jump off that balcony into the pool.  Alex decides he wants to try as well, so they both go up together to the balcony and jump off into the deep end.

We then pack up our stuff because the boys have decided they want to camp tonight.  I am not thrilled about camping although I have purchased a bunch of camping gear here in Oman that I’ve yet to use.  I know if I’m going to get used to camping in Oman, now is as good a time as any to try it, while the boys are here.  Honestly, I would prefer to stay in the Salalah Beach Villas another night, but the boys are really pushing for the outdoor experience.  😦

drinking coconut juice at a Salalah fruit stand ~ Oman

We are going to explore east of Salalah today, but first we stop at our favorite fruit stand where the guy takes a machete and chops off the tops of three coconuts and serves them to us with straws.  The boys buy a huge bunch of small bananas, none of which are ripe yet.  On our way out of Salalah, Alex yells, “Oh, *#@*!  There are ants all over these bananas!”  We stop the car while the boys take the entire bunch of bananas and wash them off with bottled water, one by one.

the garden at Ayn Razat

First stop, Ayn Razat, a garden and springs, described in Oman Off-Road as “the best pools and gardens in the area.”  We are all decidedly unimpressed.  All I can think of are the gardens I saw in Korea, especially the elaborate gardens on an island near Geoje-do, written about in my blog: geoje: rough seas & caressing grasses (& random thoughts on memory, sensuality & friendship).  Or the gardens I saw in Japan, which are artistic masterpieces: golden pavilions, rock gardens, bamboo groves and white-gloved train conductors.  The Omani gardens pale in comparison.

signs warning of the snail parasite!

We are quickly bored with this place.  The springs, which look inviting in this heat, are inaccessible because of a parasitic snail that lives in the water.  Signs are posted: “This area harbors the snails which can transmit the disease bilharziasis. Swimming and defecation (!) in the water is strongly prohibited to control the infection with bilharziasis.”  Eek!!  There is also a cave at the top of some steps that is covered in grafitti.  Overall, a kind of shabby place.  And BORING.

the Travertine Curtain

We hop in the car and go in search of a pitted 150-meter-high cliff face called the Travertine Curtain.  Travertine is a type of rock formed when carbon dioxide-rich water dissolves limestone underground and carries it away in a solution.  Upon reaching the surface, the carbon dioxide is released, as in a fizzy drink, and the limestone recrystallizes, forming the huge stalactite features on the cliff.

Alex & Adam, hot & sweaty at the Travertine Curtain

During the khareef, this cliff face apparently has waterfalls cascading over it, in effect the entire contents of Wadi Darbat.  Guidebooks call this “Arabia’s answer to Niagara Falls.” Of course, it is “winter” in Salalah now.  There is none of the lush greenery promised in guidebooks and no cascading waterfalls over the Travertine Curtain.  It is still pretty interesting, with its pockmarked face and its sheer perpendicularity.  We park the car and hike up as close as we can get, taking pictures along the way.  It is hot and sweat is pouring off of me; the boys have removed their shirts, but as a woman of course I am covered with long pants and short sleeves… miserably hot.  Oh, the sufferings of being a woman in Oman.

Adam, shirtless at the Travertine Curtain

After the Travertine Curtain, we head to Wadi Darbat.  We go off-road on several dirt tracks, only to find we are decidedly not at Wadi Darbat.  We see multitudes of camels grazing in this valley.  We love seeing all these camels in the wild.  Camels also roam about in northern Oman, but not in the numbers that we see in Salalah.

a camel in Wadi Darbat, Salalah, Oman

We drive through the wadi, which is like a wide valley, unlike most of the other wadis I have seen in Oman.  We find a lake and a stream, and more signs about the ominous parasitic snails. Large red signs warn of bilharzias, this worm that can penetrate your skin and then take residence in the veins of your bladder and intestines.  No swimming here in the waters of Salalah!

Wadi Darbat ~ no swimming allowed!

Interestingly enough, some of the surrounding caves in this wadi were used in the mid-1970s by the Sultan’s forces, along with the British SAS, to infiltrate areas of communist insurgency.  Adam is tempted to climb the hills into these caves, but he tosses this idea when he finds that neither Alex nor I want to accompany him.

swingin’ in the trees at wadi darbat

Our next destination is the Tawi Atayr Sinkhole, one of the largest known sinkholes in the world, 150 meters in diameter and 211 meters deep.  It is known locally as the “Well of the Birds” because of all the birdsong that emanates from its depths.

the Tawi Atayr Sinkhole

Sinkholes are common where the rock below the land surface is limestone or other carbonate rock, salt beds, or rocks that can naturally be dissolved by circulating ground water. As the rock dissolves, spaces and caverns develop underground. These sinkholes can be dramatic because the surface land usually stays intact until there is not enough support. Then, a sudden collapse of the land surface can occur.

the lagoon Khawr Ruri in the distance, where Wadi Darbat empties into the sea

We walk to the viewing platform and some Pakistani people are milling around looking a little shady.  My Omani friend Moo warned me about places in Salalah where Pakistanis or Bangladeshis try to weasel money out of you; he says you should always be with an Omani guide to avoid being approached by these people.  Two of them try to lead us down an overgrown trail deeper into the sinkhole, but ultimately we turn around, not feeling comfortable with them or our surroundings.

strange fencing around someone’s home ~ discovered on our fruitless search for the Baobab forest

The next place we want to see is a Baobab forest.  Sometimes called “upside down trees,” they have enormously fat trunks and a spindly network of branches, which often looks like a bundle of roots.  We follow the map in my Off-Road book, but at the place where there is supposed to be a dirt track, we find a paved road.  The paved road doesn’t match the description in the book, and finally we give up.  No Baobab trees in sight.  We’re disappointed, but it is starting to get close to sunset.  We decide we need to start looking for a campsite, because we don’t want a repeat of the Sur episode, where we couldn’t scope out campsites because it was dark.

the plateau above Khawr Ruri

Adam decides he wants to stay at a place called Khawr Ruri, where the water from Wadi Darbat empties into the sea. There is an archeological site here which was once the palace of the Queen of Sheba, overlooking a peaceful lagoon. We go to scope it out but the rocks on the plateau above the opening are rocky and hard.  Adam wants to drive my car down a very bumpy and treacherous road to the beach, but I tell him I don’t want to take my car down here.  It doesn’t look navigable and I don’t want to damage my car.

our tent set up on a beach near Mirbat

He complains that I never like his ideas, and he wants to stay here or nowhere.  I say fine, they can take me back to the Salalah Beach Villas, which I would prefer anyway. Then they can take the Terrain and find whatever camping spot they want.  They can go camp by themselves!  We get into a huge argument again, and Alex finally yells at both of us, telling us we are on a family trip and he wants to spend the night all together as a family.  After he lectures us, Adam and I are dead silent, each of us fuming inside.

I go in search of a camping spot on the beach, which I had envisioned from the first.  Near Mirbat, we find a huge expanse of beach with soft sand, and I pull off the road.  Finally, a place we can all be happy with.  We set up the tent and some chairs, and I volunteer to stay behind and hold down the fort while they drive together into Mirbat to find us some dinner.  They come back with some fruit drinks and some delicious vegetable wraps, which we gobble down in our beach chairs in the dark.  We don’t have a campfire or anything, so there is nothing to do but go to bed.

sunset in Salalah

This is why I hate camping.  Unless you have ALL the gear to make yourself comfortable, it’s simply not fun.  There is nothing to do once the sun goes down.  We have a little lantern, but all I want to do is sleep because the light isn’t good enough to read by.  We go to sleep at around 8:30; a very long night ahead.  I have a fitful night, tossing and turning after another embattled day.  So far I’m not too enamored with Salalah, and neither are the boys.  I wonder what on earth we will do tomorrow.  I’m very tempted to head back to the north, where I find the landscape to be much more interesting and beautiful.

goodnight, salalah!

more empty quarter…and onward to the land of frankincense, fruit stands & camels

Tags

Oman, Salalah, Travel

Thursday, January 19:  We wake up a little bruised from the battle last night, but we all try our best to put the episode behind us.  After eating breakfast in the Al-Ghaftain Restaurant, we get in the car for the second half of our drive through the Empty Quarter.  Al-Ghaftain is a little over halfway from Nizwa, so we still have about 4+ hours of driving through the desert.

Adam & Alex in the Empty Quarter, Oman

Uneventful is an understatement to describe the rest of the drive. This empty part of Oman is desolate and barren. I can’t find much to say about it except that there are periodic signs warning of sand dunes encroaching on the road.  Mostly flat desert, there are only small sand dunes, more like enlarged ant hills, dotting the landscape.  We make one stop along the way to take photos of ourselves standing in the gravelly sand.  We fill up with petrol every time there is a gas station, even though sometimes we get just over 1 rial of gas.  There are some road diversions along the way, little construction projects in the middle of nowhere, with apologetic signs at the end of the diversion: “Sorry for the inconvenience.”  We see one lone man running along the roadside; with no towns for miles and miles in either direction, we wonder where on earth he came from and where he’s going.

Adam, Alex and the GMC Terrain in the Empty Quarter

We look forward to stopping at the Frankincense Park to see the frankincense trees.  Until I read about frankincense in my Oman Off-Road book, I didn’t know anything about this ancient commodity, traded “pound for pound with gold” throughout India, Arabia and Europe.  The Dhofar region’s trees produced what was, and still is, considered the best frankincense in the world.

Frankincense trees in Wadi Dawkah, north of Salalah

From Oman Off-Road:  Frankincense is the hardened aromatic resin of the Boswellia tree, and is burned for its medicinal, aromatic and insect-repelling qualities.  The resin is produced by careful shaving of the bark of the tree.  A good tree may produce 10 kg of frankincense in a season, which runs from April to the beginning of the monsoon.  The trees grow wild and are located where the southern mountains of Oman meet the desert plateau.

Adam, our “guide,” and Adam under a frankincense tree

We walk down to the park where a Bangladeshi man who tends the trees shows us some trees with the resin on the trunks.

the resin from the tree that is frankincense

Most of the resin is still oozing out of the trunk and has not solidified.  He tells us that once it hardens, they will shave off the resin and sell it in the markets.  Apparently, good quality frankincense has a silvery color, is transparent, and is a good size clump of resin.  The more opaque and reddish it becomes, the lesser the quality.  Our guide shows us the resin in various stages of solidifying; I find it fascinating how this scented treasure is formed.

Wadi Uyun

After our sweltering walk through the Frankincense Park, we head next to Wadi Uyun.  We drive through 3 1/2 km of dirt roads to an overlook with glimpses of green pools and grasses.  Though my Oman Off-Road says you can find traces of a trail down to the water, we frankly don’t see any way down to the water.  Mostly high cliffs and boulders surround this wadi.  Granted we don’t take a lot of time to search for the route as we’re anxious at this point to get to Salalah after our long drive.  So we just enjoy the view and move on.

Alex & Adam & their camel friends

Along the road to the wadi, we encounter a bunch of camels grazing on some meager tufts of grass.  We get out of the car and move up close to observe them; they ignore us totally, knowing, I suppose, that they rule in Salalah.

After our camel encounter, we finally arrive in Salalah, where we check out the Lonely Planet-recommended hotel: Salalah Beach Villas.

Salalah Beach Villas ~ right on the beach!

This hotel is right on the beach, with no road in between, or behind for that matter. This makes it a little difficult to find and we drive around in circles looking for the entrance. After much miscommunication with the non-English speaking receptionist, we check in and unload our suitcases, and then check out the pool, the white sand beach, the poolside outdoor dining area, and our room.

me by the poolside as the sun is setting

We head out to find fruit at one of the multitudes of fruit stands along the road.  The boys are enamored with the fresh coconuts, hacked open and served with a straw, as well as the bunches of tiny bananas.

After collecting a coconut each, and sipping on them through our straws, we drive into Salalah proper to find another Lonely Planet restaurant, Al-Fareed Tourist Restaurant.  The guidebook tells us it’s on 23 July Street, but we drive up and down that street to no avail.  (23rd July Street is a common street name in Oman, commemorating the July 23, 1970 coup by Sultan Qaboos; it marks a day of renaissance for Oman “in the political, social, cultural, economic and technological spheres of life. Ever since he acceded the throne, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos has begun to plant the seeds of his vision to make his country enjoy the fruits of modernization and restore its glorious past,” according to Oman’s Ministry of Information). We also try to call the number in the book but we get no answer.  Finally, we’re starved so we stop at a Chinese restaurant where we order vegetarian spring rolls, vegetarian fried rice, and vegetarian noodles.  I order a grilled prawns with vegetables that seems more deep-fried than grilled; I send it back because it’s totally not what I expected.

Alex & Adam with their favorite fruit guy in Salalah

Adam & Alex ~ Chinese in Salalah

We crash early after our long drive and I feel a little better about our altercation the night before.  However, I still sense a shadow lingering over us, aftereffects of the disagreement.  I hope we will eventually recover our laid-back attitudes so we can enjoy the rest of our time together.  Time is always the healer of wounds, so we just have to let it pass to mend our hurt and angry hearts.

FRUIT!!!!

navigating oman’s empty quarter… and feeling empty inside

Tags

Empty Quarter, Oman, Salalah, Travel

Wednesday, January 18:  Our trip to Salalah starts out optimistically.  We begin our drive late in the afternoon with a plan to sleep at the Al Ghaftain Guest House, about halfway through the vast expanse of Oman’s nothingness, 860 long kilometers between Nizwa and Salalah commonly known as the Empty Quarter.

Wilayat Adam Welcomes You

We encounter our first bit of excitement in  the town of Adam, 40 km south of Nizwa. In that town, the namesake town of my youngest son, we stop to take a photo of Adam in front of a big sign: Wilayat Adam Welcomes You!  We fill up the car with petrol, since we were told that any time we see a petrol station in the 860 km through the middle of nowhere, we should stop and fill up.  We don’t know when the next petrol station will present itself in the vast emptiness, so we take the advice and top off the tank.

the sun sets over the Empty Quarter

We continue on.  Soon after the town of Adam, the mountains dwindle to flatlands and all we see around us is a vast expanse of plains with some scrubby bushes dotting the landscape.  As we continue on, kilometer after kilometer, even the bushes disappear, and all that’s left in any direction are expanses of flat sand.  Not the nice red sand and windswept dunes of the Sharqiya region, but white pebbly sand as flat as a griddle.

We take turns driving, Adam and Alex and I, and the time passes.  At some point it gets dark, and we drive along in the darkness with no idea what’s around us.

This is when things start to deteriorate.  Adam tells us about a link one of his friends posted on her Facebook page about Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome (Brick Walls).  A mother had written in because she was told by a doctor at the Nephrology department at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, that  her daughter, who is mentally retarded, should not have a kidney transplant because she is mentally retarded and has brain damage.

Adam tells us the response he wrote to this girl’s posting, which was as follows: “is a human being something more than an animal? don’t get me wrong, i love and respect all life, and would never purposefully harm any life unless my own life depends on it. but that does not mean i would go out of my way, nor do i expect anyone else to go out of their way, for what seems to me to be a hopeless cause. when a horse gets a broken leg, it is usually put down. most house pets are never left to die themselves, but are put “to sleep” in order to prevent misery. why is it different with humans? are humans something more than animals? we have the technology and capacity to keep many more things alive than we do. why fight for one form but not another? i have heard when Spartans had a baby which seemed unfit, they would hurl it over a cliff. when you are hungry, do you not kill a chicken? or a cow? or a fish?

“… all of the money this family is willing to spend to save this one human, could be used to save many many more humans with less severe conditions, but do not have the money to save themselves. or, wow who would think of this, but that same amount of money could save thousands if not millions of innocent animals. also, there will be tons of money that will be spent by this family which will go into the pockets of already too wealthy pharmaceutical company owners who are nothing more than very big time drug dealers who will put out drugs which will be tested (probably on animals, many of which are caged their entire lives and subjected to horrible conditions) but probably not tested enough and then more people will be harmed by these drugs which are improperly prescribed and then more money will be spent for those annoying lawyer commercials which just tell us that we deserve more money because we took too many drugs da da da sorry i don’t know where i’m going with this any more but you see what im saying maybe a little bit? there is much more to this than this one little girl. there are many more problems in this world than a children’s doctor (who has probably saved many lives in his career) calling a little girl retarded… sorry for the rant, again, no harm meant to anyone just trying to provoke thought.”

the boys’ room at the Al Ghaftain Rest House

I know my sons have radical ideas, and it’s fine with me if they want to have these ideas.  But when they try to push their agenda on me, I bristle and resist. I don’t like anyone who tries to browbeat me into believing what they believe, no matter what the idea.  Whatever the subject matter, religion, politics, sociology or psychology, I will resist anyone who tries to force their beliefs on me.  I will listen and try to understand their perspective, but then I can choose to agree to disagree.  People are certainly welcome to have their ideas, but they are just as certainly NOT welcome to try to force their ideas down my throat.

the room where I spend a restless ~ and freezing ~ night

I listen to their arguments and I agree that some of their points are valid.  But, as devil’s advocate, I argue the other side of this issue.  I say that I believe humans are more than animals because of our cognitive and emotional development.  I believe there is a food chain and some animals are meant to be food for other animals.  You can look around in nature and see this.  Adam says that he should show me a video of cows being slaughtered and then I won’t say animals don’t have emotions.   They certainly do have emotions and know fear. They know when they are about to be slaughtered. I know this is true as all animals have that fight-or-flight instinct that is vital to their survival.

I say that pharmaceutical companies should be able to test drugs on animals so that human lives can be saved.  Adam disagrees vehemently that animals should suffer to save human lives.  He sees animals and humans on a level playing field; they should have the same rights and be treated exactly the same.

the prayer mat in our room at Al-Ghaftain…we need prayers on this night!

We move to the idea of the mentally retarded girl.  Adam believes huge sums of money should not be spent to keep alive someone whose contribution to society is negligible.  I say that mentally retarded people contribute to society in their own way, according to their ability.  But he argues money would be better spent saving those whose contributions are larger.  I say this is a slippery slope; once you start making decisions about whose lives are more valuable than others’, it will never end.  You can’t quantify the value of a human life, although I’m sure society does make just such judgments.

I present to him a scenario.  Suppose he gets married one day and has a mentally retarded child.  How would he feel?  What I don’t even get to say to Adam is this: Suppose that one day YOU are in a horrible accident and become mentally incapacitated.  How would you feel under these circumstances?  Should I think of any money spent saving you as a wasted resource?  As your mother, should I throw up my hands and give up because the contribution you can make to society is now diminished?

Adam says he doesn’t plan to get married and neither does he plan to have any children.  I say, suppose you change your mind?  Suppose you decide to have children and suppose you have a mentally retarded child?  He says that won’t happen to him.  Then he attacks me for appealing to his emotions instead of thinking logically about this issue.  “Use your brain!  I can’t even believe my own mother is stooping so low and not even presenting an intelligent argument.”

pointing in the direction of Mecca in Al-Ghaftain Rest House

By now I am pissed off beyond belief, but I decide to keep silent.  This argument is deteriorating into something ugly and unbelievable, and frankly, I am not liking either of my boys right now. Now that their attacks have become personal, my blood is boiling and I fear a huge escalation.  I sit silently, fuming inside, and drive through the empty, and now somewhat threatening, darkness.

Both the boys then team up and begin a full frontal attack on me, saying I don’t contribute to society because I eat meat and spend money and consume too much of the earth’s resources. I argue that I don’t eat that much meat and that I am working to simplify my life.  They continue to attack and say I really don’t contribute, basically because I’m not a vegetarian like they are.  I argue that I contribute in my own way, according to what I believe is important, such as educating women in the Middle East to give them opportunities and hope.  They say again that I’m helping humans, and not thinking at all about animals.  That’s right.  Because frankly, animal rights are not my agenda, but THEIRS.  They’re welcome to it, but I don’t choose it as my own.

Adam the morning after the battle, holding the prayer mat up to Mecca

By this time I am so angry I want to say to them, “And exactly how are you both contributing?  By shrugging off your responsibility to complete your education and by refusing to work hard?  By continuing to mooch off your father????”  But I know the futility of making such a statement, especially with the emotions running high in this car, and I don’t say anything.  I am just dead silent.

I’m sick of this discussion, mainly because I’m sick of their self-righteous attitudes, so I say what I always say when I want to end a discussion: “Whatever.”  And then I am silent.  The silence in the car is as thick and impenetrable as solidifying wet concrete.

We arrive finally at Al-Ghaftain Rest House and check in to our room.  Tensions are still high, but Alex and I decide to go to the 24-hour restaurant for dinner.  Adam says he will stay in the room.  I shrug and head to the restaurant.  After dinner, we return to the room.  As soon as we walk in, Adam grabs his backpack and says he’s going for a walk.  Then he disappears into the vast expanse of the Empty Quarter.

Al-Ghaftain Rest House, the morning after

At this point, I start getting text messages from Mike, the boys’ father, in Virginia.  “What’s going on?”

I respond: “He’s just upset bc I don’t agree with his ideas about animals being as important as humans.  I’m not going to get into a 3-way discussion!”

Mike: “Let him have his opinions and let him know that you respect his opinions but don’t try to change them or argue. Just let him know you disagree and that is the way we were raised.”

Me: “That is exactly what I did and then he started attacking me personally.  I really don’t need you to get involved!”

This back and forth continues with Mike sending messages to Adam and me, Alex sending messages to Adam.  Alex is worried sick about his brother and begging him to please come back to the room.  There are texts still coming from Mike to me and then from Adam to Mike, and I think Adam makes phone calls to Mike.  I tell Mike that if Adam isn’t back in the room by 8 a.m., I will leave without him.  And when I find him again, I will send him home on the next plane.  By this time, I am so furious that I really want to send them both home and go back to my peaceful and quiet life of solitude.

Parting shots of Al-Ghaftain

After much phone negotiation between Mike and Adam, and Alex and Adam, I get this text from Mike: “Adam is headed back.  Just give him a hug and take the first step and say you are sorry.  He is a young headstrong kid. Don’t get into any more discussion.  Just give each other space.”

Adam finally returns to the room, several hours after he left.  He apologizes and I do too (although I don’t really know what the hell I’m apologizing for!) and we give each other a hug.  I try to sleep, still furious over the entire incident; my heart is still pounding with anxiety.  Our whole adventure in Oman, which up to this point has been fun and easy-going, now has a dark shadow over it.  This is motherhood and family life at its worst; this is one of many reasons why I have chosen to work abroad.

I have three children.  I love them dearly.  But I am not cut out for motherhood.  Where other mothers have these natural motherly instincts, I have to work for them.  I have to pretend that they’re there and act according to how I think a mother should act.  It’s always been a struggle for me to play-act this role.

I remember when I was young and thought about children, someone told me having children is like carrying around an egg with you all the time, every second of every day for the rest of your life.  You have to be careful, always on guard, or the egg will crack, or worse, break open.  It never ends, this role.

There is a quote from a 1950s calendar: “The first 40 years of parenthood are always the hardest.”  This is hilarious and oh so true!  My children will always be my children, no matter what they do, no matter how old they are.  Sometimes that’s a wonderful thing, and sometimes it’s simply NOT.