Oman - Safari
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2006
1
Trip End
Jul 28, 2006
Muscat, Oman
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
We went through a little highway towards Quriyat and then a rough off road, the first place was called something like Singaur. Actually on the north there's sea and on the south there are mountains with fresh water. So some hundreds of years ago the water pressure from sea towards mountains, and water pressure from mountains to sea caused a big crater, say 50 m, looked like some meteor fall. That was a good thing to venture. Then we followed another rough patch of stones and dust to reach a place called Wadi Shab. On the way we also saw beautiful blue sea, and a nice white sand beach. Wadi Shab is a beautiful place between a narrow valley formed by 4-5 small mountains. You can trek up to 4 kms inside after that its very rough n need equipment. So we went through that valley full of caves, water, greenery n rocks of different shape. N it was completely uninhabited so we could feel a surge of anxiety what we would see next. A sense of adventure. We took 1 hour to walk through that 4kms, taking snaps, jumping over rocks n water. It was fun, with no coverage n no people around we felt we are entering a new world. After reaching the spot we celebrated took snaps like we were the only "pirates of the Arabian" :)
As we were getting late (0545pm) so we had to literally jog our way back and reached our waiting guide 0615pm. Then through a better road this time we saw a town called Sur and had evening snack and coffee. Then by 0900 pm we reached our hotel at Ras-al-hadd, called beach hotel. We had a hearty dinner as we were really hungry after that wonderful trek n also because we couldn't eat much in the afternoon. After dinner we went to turtle beach. It's a turtle conservation area n you need passes to enter. There were lot of people from around the Europe and some Arabic. The ranger explained us that Oman is a famous place for green turtles. Every year during this season you can find lot of them here. They grow up to 4 ft long. Believe me, I actually saw them and felt they are larger. They eat some vegetation and even jelly fishes. Then we followed the caravan to reach the actual place where we had to hike a hill through the rocks to reach the beach. It was actually dark n everyone had to use their torches. It was fun. A strong wind was blowing and I could feel the chill initially but got used to it later. We were not supposed to focus torches at the turtles or take snaps with flashes as it disturbs turtles and they may go away w/o laying eggs. You can go near n touch them when they start laying eggs but not before. We actually saw two turtles laying eggs. Actually they make 3 ft large hole with there front paws n make 2 ft narrow hole with there hind paws n then lay there eggs. It's the most vulnerable moment as foxes sometimes take advantage and eat away the eggs. A large turtle lays up to 150 eggs in one sit of 15 mins. Then they cover the holes n they make a similar hole near by to dupe the predators, they actually fool the predators lot of times as they end up searching wrong place for eggs. You know the sad part is out of 150 only 1 - 2 turtles ultimately live. Most turtles babies are eaten on beach by foxes or eagles, even if they are successful in reaching sea water, they are eaten by bigger fishes. So ultimately 1 or 2 survive. These turtles actually travel different places like Maldives, Thailand and even Australia and return back to the exact places back even after 4 years. The ranger also told us that temperature is important in determining the sex of babies, like 28 deg produces all males from the eggs. We actually saw a bunch of baby turtles just hatched from the eggs, you know what, these babies always follow sun/light (In morning Sun rises in the east and this is the direction to sea, so good for them). So when the ranger put torch towards sea all babies started crawling towards it and when he put light in opposite direction towards beach, the babies actually tumbled and took reverse turn again towards the light...HOO, after such good informative section we went back to hotel with contended hearts, and were on bed almost immediately. Wind was blowing hard on the windows and I gradually went to deep sleep.
Next day my friend waked me up n we got ready by 0715 to have a heavy breakfast planning to make full use of the day. We started n our first stop was a very old mosque built some hundreds of years back. This is very unlike the present mosques with a dome and a pillar. It had lots of domes in a single structure. Most of the roads in this part gets covered by sand dunes in the night because of wind. So municipality has lot of work everyday. The distances were large so by the time we reached our next destination it was 1030 am, this place was called Wadi bani khalid. It was cool effect to find some green place suddenly after rough mountains, rocks and dust. We could find lot of people picnicking here. We actually went into water to cool ourselves. The water was not deep so it was good for me as I cant swim. Actually some small fishes were trying to pull my leg :) After that refreshing bath in wadi waters and having nice lunch of biryani on the highway we started for our final and the ultimate adventure destination. The Wahiba sand Dunes..! Here we drove ourselves for sometime on some rough patch before reaching the dunes. Driving on sand dunes requires quite a good experience else you will make the SUV roll down on sides. Our hearts started beating very fast as we drove through tilts of 45 degs on the sand. And imagine we went down on sand dune at a tilt of 75 degs and a depth of say 50-70 mts. I was actually hanging by my seat belt. It actually felt like a big essel world ride with only difference being this was real and we were not sure we will make it to the ground. The Arabian nomadic people are called Bedouins and they are supposed to be experts in sand driving. They can make out the better way to go just seeing the sand. I was imagining that if I get lost in these sands, I will never make it to the highway as all directions had the same terrain, n if I sleep in the night I would probably be covered by a sand dune next day. Also the tracks which we were making were getting covered by sand because of wind. So its very important that you have a person who knows the place well. Lucky we had Ali. We did these X-games kind of stuff for an hour n then hit the highway. Driving 120 kmph I reached home my 0530 pm. The next two days I spent in hangover of the trip.
