Things have been happening while I was away so my adventures down in the deep (beautiful) south tucked away in a Wadi looking for traces of the elusive Leopard, removed from phone reception and sheltered from the news of ongoing unrest may not be at the top of your priorities. I am sure that most of you will want to know what is going on over here and what the situation is. To be honest I am catching up and I probably know just about as much as you out there or maybe even less.
I left the expedition camp on 4th March and Salalah on 5th March on an epic journey that saw us driving from about 8:30 am to 1:30 am when we reached the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve! What a killer! We started in a convoy of 4 cars, one of which left us to proceed directly to Muscat while the rest of us headed to the UAE (to drop all the expedition equipment before making our way back to Muscat on a separate schedule).
We were supposed to do the drive over 2 days with an intermediate stop but for some reason one of the people tasked with the drive managed to complicate things with an optimist flight booking from Muscat pushing us to do it all in one day (even though he eventually changed his flight – long story and very boring too). I felt a bit homicidal at times but in general I actually enjoyed the drive. It may be because I was driving a very comfy car (a super techy brand new Land Rover LR4 V8) or maybe because I do actually like driving, especially if there is nobody else in the vehicle forcing me into some mindless polite conversation. Just me, the desolate landscape, the sandstorms, the straight roads and the music. Brill!
I spent one night in the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve (and saw the beautiful Arabian Oryx too) and then set off again to Muscat on 6th March. The four hours drive required to do this last stretch at seemed so fast after the drive from Salalah to Dubai ,although I was really tired and had to stop on the roadside for a nap half way through.
The route from Dubai to Muscat takes you past the now probably famous Sohar Globe Roundabout which you may have seen pictured on the papers over the last week or so.
The roundabout itself was closed and there were people sitting or wandering about in the middle of it and on the roads around it, with banners, big picture of the Sultan etc. but everything looked under control.
There was heavy military presence along the roads there: armored vehicles, huge machine guns in display, helicopter flying low over the area (I could actually see the people inside it from the open side door); but once again it all felt calm and under control. I actually felt tempted to stop and take pictures/video but I thought better of it and drove on.
I am now in Muscat and from a daily life perspective I cannot say that anything has changed. We still go about our usual business and we are not particularly concerned about the situation.
There are plenty of blogs talking about what is happening so I am not going to add to that. If you are interested in reading some first hand real stories from some local bloggers (as opposed to – impersonal - international news) you may visit the following links:
From two teachers who work in Sohar: http://danandjillian3.blogspot.com/
Next I’ll tell you about the expedition I have just come back from, which was all very interesting.
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