Peaks and Troughs in Oman

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I took the bus down to a place called Sur those of you who watched the Amazing Race the other day will know what I am talking about.

The trip took about 5 hours and went through some pretty arid country full of craggy peaks and camels. I was happily chatting away with an Omani bloke who wanted to practice his English, who kindly escorted me to the hotel when we arrived.

Sur like all of Oman is a very attractive place the town has a couple of nifty loking castles and an attractive dhow harbour. Some believe this port town was the home of the mythical Sinbad. I came to Sur to do the turtle tour to Ras Al-Jinz, where I hoped to see the Green Turtles crawl out of the sea and lay their eggs in the sand.

My LP is a few years old and Oman is maddly sealing every road in sight so I could have hired a car and done it myself as a 4WD is no longer necessary. Within the next couple of years all Oman's sites will be accessible by two wheel drives and the roads are extremely safe.

Anyway so after arriving at the hotel at about 7pm I went up to my room which was big had an ensuite and a balcony, fridge etc and turned on the TV, I had 5 channel one was Hindi news, two were Arab news, one movie channel and one hard core porn station ;-).

The tour left at 9pm and I was out at the beach pretty fast because of the excellent road, it turned out to be a bad night for turtles as there was a full moon and they usually stay away on these nights. At the beach there was about 30 people gathered in a circle listening to the ranger talk about the turtles, giving a description of species that use the beach and their habits.

It was then time to go see them, the problem was there was only one on the beach which is better than nothing, however in July they have as many as 700 on the beach at a time.

It was a memorable moment for me as she was a big old girl and she was digging her whole for laying, I got right up close and personal truely memorable moment.

On the way back to Sur the driver told me he had a mate with 4WD that could take me to Oman's most stunning beauty spots Wadi Tiwi and Wadi Sham for 25 Riyal (its 150 from Muscat) so I jumped at the opportunity.

At 8am I was up and on the road, it went to dirt on the edge of town and was bumpy and a bit rough, a new road is under construction and will open soon. We went to Qalhat first where I stopped to take a picture of Bibi Miriam's tomb before stopping at the drivers restaurant for a free breaky then on to Wadi Tiwi.

Wadi Tiwi can be driven up, so I would ask the driver to stop about every five minutes so I could take another photo, the road was only about 6 foot wide so the three kilometre trip took a while and got hairy when other vihicles came the other way. The gorge is beautiful as you will see from the photos so I wont go into too much detail except to say that there were millions of birds living in the canyon walls and the noise they made was deafening.

Wadi Sham is only a few miles down the road and you have to walk in, the walk would not be that big a deal except it was 43 degrees and I was damn hot.

Six kilometres later I was sitting in the car with some fantastic shots in the camera and was satisfied I had made it out with out heat stroke, I did drink out of the stream in the Wadi once or twice when I fould running water. At the end is a cave you can swim into but I didnt have any bathers with me they were still in my big pack in Muscat so I didnt go in.

I arrived back in Sur around 1pm had a bite to eat then jumped on the bus back to Muscat. I had just taken care of two of the sights I was eager to see and had had a great time. This soured a few hours later when I had a run in with another dirty cheating taxi driver and lost my wallet with all my ATM and credit cards.

After I got over the shock of having no way to replenish my money and stressing a little, I started thinking about how to deal with this 'little' problem, I went to the Internet Cafe where the guys were extremely helpful (I havent paid a cent for a phone call or Internet time yet) then a guy heard my predicament and offerred me $400 cash, I didnt accept but this has continued to happen over the two days I have been sitting on my arse doing nothing.

I cancelled my visa card and Ruthy has been trying to send me money via Western Union I should get it tomorrow. I have kept my Iran money separate all along but I am worried that if something goes wrong in Iran I could be in serious trouble in a country that has no international banking facilities, no western unions etc.

I hope to get my transfer at 8.30am tomorrow morning I will then go pay the people at the Internet Cafe and the hotel and then I am off to the airport for my 11am flight to Dubai.

Thanks everyone for your input and your comments


Thanks for helping me sort my little problem babe , love ya

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Photos

Green Turtle by Night
These could be clearer but I couldnt use a flash

Sur
Sunaysilah Castle

Qalhat
Bibi's Tomb

Wadi Sham
These two mad buggers jumped in from at leat 40 feet up the cliff

Wadi Sham
The kids used to charge 1 Riyal to cross here but the concrete bridge appears to have put them out of business

Comments

[Jill Overy]

Still fabulous.....
....In spite of your 'little problem". Glad it seems to be sorted now. How great to see the turtle, even if there was only one.Real wild life TV stuff! Made out the picture tho' blurred, and the scenery of the wadis was mind blowing. As I said, marvellous photography...Now, you've GOT to write that book.Ruthy and I will edit it! Lucky guy! Love from Jill and ChasPS How kind of them to helpyou thro' your disaster... Couldn't happen here, makes one quite ashamed

[deleted_16181]

Cash
Its really generous that someone offered you that much money out of the blue - must have been an oil tycoon or something :) Sorry to hear about the loss of your cards etc - maybe you could get travellers cheques as a back up.

[sonja]

l l went to the same place this year as my brother lives there the heat is a real killer but the place was worth it l went into the cave there was a waterfall and also lots of frogs l also drank from the streams as it was so hot would love to go back but next time l will take more water