We ( Angel's David and Val, Fai Tira's John and me went on a 24 hour safari into the desert, also known as the "Empty Quarter", the largest area of sand dunes in the world at 650,000 sq km. We were to drive with an experienced guide, Suhail, in his wonderfully airconditioned 4x4 across the coastal plain of Oman, up into the Dhofari mountains, across the plateau which turns green with the rains after July, through the increasingly dry, rocky and dusty desert landscape and on into the sandy desert proper with nothing but dunes, dunes and more dunes as far as the eye can see. Fantastic! On the way, we stopped for lunch and had a huge meal at a roadside cafe for a whole rial (that's£1.60 to you), then stopped again to look at frankincense trees growing wild. I could put a photo in, but in the end, it's just a tree with some greenery at the top and you need to be there to experience it. Suhail cut into the bark to start it bleeding and showed us other cuts from earlier expeditions where the sap had oozed sufficiently over three weeks to enable "harvesting". It was incredibly sticky...sand is good for cleaning hands I found,.... and also strangely edible...we tried some...the frankincense I mean!
We stopped again just before the desert proper to have a look around the ruins of a lost city over 4000 years old. "Shisur" is just one of its names I believe. It used to be a very important watering hole on the frankincense route from Dhofar to the north. A huge sink hole there is now dry however because they are trying to grow grass for the camels and have sunk 40m wells all over the place to provide enough water. It does look a little odd to see huge areas of dusty brown dotted all over with squares of bright green. I hope the plan works. There is nothing else much around for the camels and there are thousands of them to feed. The camels out here are almost black by the way, a separate breed I read somewhere.
After about 5 hours, we found the true sandy desert, the fabled "Empty Quarter" which is the very same place that Wilfred Thesiger came to in 1950 when he crossed this vast area with the Bedouin, fell in love with one or two of the younger Arab boys (!) and eventually spent five years with them. I had no idea that he started his journey in Salalah, as I had read the book 40 years ago and forgotten all the details except that I wanted to go there too some day. I went through a patch when I was about 14 where I had a minor obsession with all things arab.......the horses of course, the Bedouin way of life ( it may have been those ads for Turkish Delight that hooked me?)........and Omar Sharif!! I have now started to re read this wonderful book seeing it all again with so much more insight.
We drove deep into the dune area until we were completely surrounded by huge mounds of tan coloured sand. I was looking for the classic shape, a barchan dune...the crescent shaped ones and the only name I could remember from geography lessons. I found thousands of them, varying in size from just a few feet across and about three feet high to some that were miles across and mountainous. These huge dunes were naturally the most spectacular with beautiful natural curves and wave patterns within them formed by wind changes over many years. We stopped briefly on our route to find a suitable campsite for the night and walked in the dunes for the first time. The sand was extremely hot, having been heating up in the fierce sun all day but very difficult to walk on with shoes. We tried to walk along the ridge of a huge dune that wound upwards into the distance and could only manage a couple of hundred yards. Practice needed. The photo above (by John) was taken in the morning when the top sand was delightfully cool. We were slipping and sliding down the steep slopes that form on the back edge of the dunes where the sand is really soft. Climbing up beforehand is very very hard work....excellent exercise for lots of under used leg muscles! I resisted the urge to roll down the slope...the sand is very fine and dusty...almost impossible to shake off I should think.
I know this is yet another picture of the sand but I have dozens more! The sand changed colour as the day wore on but my camera didn't really capture the true colours very well. It was almost blue on occasion in the shadows. I think Val is in this picture somewhere. She went off on a long trek for a call of nature.......it was quite difficult to get to a place out of sight, and very very hard work! Suhail prepared a typical Arab meal for us of camel stew with rice, salad, cheese and bananas for later. One or two of us had brought a beer or two that had stayed just cool enough to drink and Suhail also gave us hot ginger tea which was quite nice (for a lifetime non tea drinker). Suhail, a muslim obviously, didn't mind thank goodness. He went off to pray at sunset.....at least we then knew in which direction Mecca lay! He must be one of very few people in the world who is able to navigate safely through this amazing terrain. There are tyre tracks all over the place but most of them were from previous treks like ours guided by Suhail. He said that the tracks can last for some time but usually get covered over by sand as the wind blows (hot by day and cool at night) and small dunes appear which eventually obscure all signs. It rains approximately every five years and then the small plants which are dotted around everywhere spring to life. The effects of the rain last a long time however and a lot of the plants were a lovely yellowy green. The dead" plants are still alive too, the roots just waiting for a rainy day.
We settled down for the night, having chosen sleeping spots all around the campsite. Suhail had provided mattresses, sleeping bags and pillows. The sand was surprisingly hard to sleep on though and I didn't get a lot of rest! The temperature dropped a fair amount as the night wore on and I put on another layer. When my feet got cold, I pushed them into the sand which had retained a lot of daytime heat. Very cosy! There was a full moon so the night started of quite brightly lit, not good for star gazing but later on, after it had set, the stars came out very nicely and scorpio dominated the sky. For a lot of people, this might be their best night of star gazing but for us yachties, it was quite normal. What was unusual for us, however, was the silence.....absolute stillness..... apart from our breathing, OK and just a little snoring too.......
Next morning I climbed higher up on the dune to have this photo taken and hopefully to fulfill my quest which is to have this come up on Google, if one types in the title of this piece.... I can't try it until I post this but I live in hope! We had a good breakfast of flat bread, eggs, cheese, yogurt, fruit and tea before packing up and setting off out across the dunes back onto the road. On the way, Suhail drove us across the flats which are littered with thousands and thousands of huge geodes. We got out and I picked up as many as I could carry. I learned which ones were likely to be good specimens. Excess baggage may be payable!As we picked our way through new dunes, cleverly avoiding the soft sand that bogs the vehicles down, Suhail spotted a Bedouin camp in the distance...so we drove up, stopped, got out and were introduced to real nomads ( except for the 4x4). We sat outside their tent and drank hot sweet tea .... Val and I had to cover up a little and sit on the outer edge of the group...that was fine by us! They chatted away in arabic and passed us pieces of some weird local sweet...an acquired taste I think. We said goodbye and drove off to where their camels were kept. I tried some fresh camel's milk. Hmm!
A few hours of driving later and we were back at the port. On the way, I continued trying to speak just a few words of arabic with Suhail's help. Not very successful! I had thought that I had done well by being able to read the "Stop" sign, the word I believed being pronounced "khif". Suhail had us in stitches over this one. The correct pronunciation goes a bit like this....gather up all the "stuff" in the back of your throat and start as if you mean to cough it all up, really fiercely, but don't. Instead, sort of bark out the sound "kh" and then add "rruffff" as loudly as you can. Very very difficult. I'm still practising just that one word. I have a long way to go.
This has been a long piece but then , it was a very full 24 hours we spent out there so no apologies. I loved it.
No comments:
Post a Comment