Offroad fun!

I have been quoted a 2-hours wait. I've learnt to be creative. So excuse this long post, I have plenty of time today. As I sit here on a bench at the side of the Al Maha car wash, waiting for the mighty 4x4 to be cleared from the caked salty sand under its engine and the dust to be washed away inside and out I'll use this time to tell you about our latest adventure. Ohh I love technology (sometimes).

The alarm went off at 6.10am. The room was still dark and my eyes still stuck together. As I snoozed the annoying thing I figured out that surely with 3 families with small children, even if we took it easy being late was not going to make us the last ones. I was right, in fact we could have taken it even easier. 4 hours later between pee stops and emergency car roof rack repairs we were still making our way out of Muscat. It didn't bother us. This is Oman, if you want to live a good life take it easy and relax. It is up to you how you take the inevitable unexpected diversions: you can have a nervous breakdown on a daily basis or just see the funny side. The latter works better for me.

About two hours or so from Muscat we were reaching Al Wasil. This is where you normally enter the desert but seen that we were nearing lunch time and we were nowhere near half way through to our final destination we decided to stick to the main road. By 1pm we were crossing a sleepy town with more goats around than humans. I liked it. It really felt like we were in a forgotten place that got stuck back in time. I was waiting for a bundle of dry weed to appear tumbling down the road but maybe the goats ate it before it had a chance. We stopped for a quick lunch and a leg stretch by the windy beach and then back on the cars.

After spending a few hours on a graded track and later racing against the lowering sun we decided to stop and camp for the night. I am not too sure exactly where we were. There were tradintional fishing villages dotted around and sadly a lot of rubbish as a reminder that despite the seemengly remote location in fact we were not too far from civilization and its plastic. After a while spent trying to find a clean spot on the beach we headed slightly inland towards the desert sand where we set camp on a lovely stretch of clean, soft sand.

The following morning it was our turn to make breakfast. As I wished I could sleep a bit longer for the second day in a row I dragged myself out of the tent at sun rise and dug my feet in the cold sand. It wasn't long before we were all packed and back in our cars. A full morning and early afternoon of technical offroad driving through difficult terrains and lots of excitement. It was a fun packed day which ended in a remote corner of paradise.

We headed straight into the desert and tackled huge dunes, the heart racing when our car span to the side as we descended the first one. Simon was driving, it was his first go at high dunes. I was literally shitting myself. The bottom of the dune looked so far below, with the car out of line the heavy back was dragging us to one side (mine). I kept on leaning towards Simon (as if it was goin to make any difference) an instinctive reflex more than an effective solution. At one point I was seriously considering opening the door and jumping out of the car, then I thought better of it, ok high centre of gravity makes these machines more prone to rolling over, but we were sliding slowly and surely these monsters were built for this (with a skilled driver at the wheel).

Yet the idea of the car rolling upside down the dune with all our heavy cargo of cooler boxes, pots and pans and other necessary junk loose on the inside was making me extremely uncomfortable. As we reached the bottom of the dune my muscles unclenched and I started breathing again.

It is hard to convey the excitement of the day in words. The desert was absolutely beautiful and as we crossed it in our convoy of 6 cars, sometimes stopping for photos, sometimes to get unstuck, others just to wait for each other, I kept on looking around at this immense open space and I felt so free, so small, so part of it and so excited. You may think of the desert as one samey boring landscape but it changes a lot as you drive through it. Sometimes you find a solitary tree standing proudly under the blinding sun, giving shelter to local birds (or us passing nomads), to remind you that there is water under that sand after all and that even such a harsh landscape harbours life.

Sometimes you have hardened sand scuplted by the wind, others lots of little bushes on top of sand mounds and at times you encounter some other unfamiliar vegetation.
As we neared the road towards the sea and we climbed the last dune the landscape opened up to an immense flat of hardened sand. We lined up, pushed down the accelerators and raced a few kilometers at the top of our speed towards the paved road at the far end.

We pumped up the tires up to get on the tarmac only to bleed them again a few kilometers down the road. We enetered the longest and most difficult terrain in our offroad itinerary.

As we headed towards the sea we had to contend with the vast salt flats, a layered ground of crusty sand surface covering soft wet sand and salty water bottom. As the crust broke under the tyres, the car would sink in the slushy sand underneath creating a lot of resistance. Sometimes the bottom would harden and sharp salt crystals and rocks would protrude so we had to adjust the speed and drive around them carefully to avoid a flat tyre. At some point we stopped, J. Had to check a leak under her car. We kept on sniffing it thinking it was petrol.

We were miles from any basic road and the thought of breaking down out there was daunting. I didn't think we could even dream of towing that far, let alone in that terrain. Luckily we soon established that it was condensation from the AC and we kept going.

The last part of the drive was long and tiring but still a lot of fun.

Finally the landscape opened up to blinding white sand and turquiouse blue sea framed by emeral green lagoons with pink flamingos that struggled into the air as we drove past, perturbed by our arrival.

We had reached our final destination, Barr Al Hickman. Mouth wide open I was awed by the beauty of this place, miles of white beach so remote and wild. It was a corner of paradise.
We drove a litte bit longer along the beach and found a spot to set camp.

It was hard to leave at 3pm the following day! But then we have other adventures to look forward to. That was just one way of spending a long weekend in Oman.

Oh the car is almost done and my laptop battery is dying, I hope it was a good read. I'll post some photos soon.