29.10.-06.11.2023
East Coast and desert
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Endlessness – if you want to experience this in an impressive way, take the car from Oman’s north coast to Salalah, the green city just before the Yemeni border. But first things first:
After a visit to the beaches at the easternmost point of the Arabian Peninsula, Ras Al Hadd, where green sea turtles come to lay their eggs all year round, which was only partially successful, our journey first takes us south-westwards into the central desert of Oman, known as Ribal Wahiba or Sharqiyya Sands. After a series of smaller, typical villages and small towns, we reach Bidayya, which is partly characterised by desert tourism, and ignore or politely reject the sometimes insistent attempts to make us book organised overnight camps. We rather prefer to find our own way to experience a night in the desert and don’t have to drive very deep into the desert along the track between the towering reddish-brown dunes on both sides. Very soon we find a beautiful, secluded campsite in the shade of two desert acacias away from the organised camps and camel enclosures and pitch our tent there just before moonrise. As soon as we do, three curious wild camels pay us a visit, fortunately at a suitable distance. We bring the day to a close by the glowing embers of the dying campfire.
When we set off southwards the next morning, there are almost 900 kilometres between us and our destination, Oman’s second largest city, Salalah, which many Omanis recommend as a must-see. In between, we have to overcome one of the world’s largest scree deserts and the Al Khaluf desert, whose typical white sand dazzles our eyes – a special kind of endurance test. The perfect grey asphalt ribbon of the E32 winds its way in just a few long bends through a desert that offers little variety to the eye and where, for long stretches, even the otherwise ubiquitous wild camels no longer seem to find a livelihood. Only the town of Haima, a trucker’s stop located roughly in the middle of the route, offers variety and the opportunity for a short rest, refreshments and to replenish water supplies.
From there, we follow the coastal road to Duqm, which is on the rise thanks to a major socio-economic development initiative that includes a large refinery and a comprehensive urbanisation project, and find a romantic campsite near the fishing village of Khaluf with its extensive beaches characterised by strong surf and the imposing cliffs above one of the bays filled with pink sand. As soon as we have finished our evening ritual of pitching the tent, having dinner and taking a water bag shower, we are surprised by the fascinating spectacle of a blood-red moonrise as we go to bed.
Even more impressive, however, is the journey from the high plateau of the Dhofar Mountains to the coastal plain around Salalah at the end of the second day. While we had just been surrounded by barren scree and vast sand dunes, the view suddenly opens up to green-covered and wooded slopes, where cattle graze, leafy and flowering bushes and trees, date palms and fig trees grow. Watercourses and even waterfalls become visible; it seems like entering paradise.
Like the surrounding landscape, the city of Salalah is very different from the rest of Oman, benefiting from the annual khareef, the monsoon that lasts from June to September, a constant drizzle. A comparison with Singapore, for example, comes to mind: palm-lined avenues and boulevards, lush, carefully tended green spaces, clean, continuously asphalted streets and pavements, traffic islands and parks with flowerbeds and water features, colourful, flashing neon signs on glittering glass facades. The consequences of the deliberate promotion – after the suppression of the communist uprising supported by Yemen at the end of the 1960s – of the once neglected province of Dhofar are clearly visible here in the birthplace of the Sultan. But the population is also recognisably different from the rest of the Sultanate, both ethnically and culturally, as its origins lie more in what is now Ethiopia.
As attractive as this green city with the Sultan Qaboos Mosque, model for the Great Sultan Qaboos Mosque in Muscat, its interesting and very elegant incense museum and the heavily guarded, high-walled Sultan’s Palace are the coastal areas to the west and east, whose obligatory visits require an extension of our stay here.
Of the wadis to the east, Ayn Tobruk and Ayn Hamran are now unfortunately dry, but Ayn Razad, where children happily frolic in the pools, impresses with its well-kept picnic area as well as the pretty waterfall of Wadi Kashbar. But the Wadi Darbat leaves us speechless. All year round, a 200 metre high waterfall, now only one in the dry season and three to four in the khareef, plunges from the high plateau deep into a gorge, from which the water pours through multiple pools and cascades for kilometres into the sea. We can hardly tear ourselves away from the many magnificent views and vistas that present themselves to us as we walk through this wadi. In the end, we lack the time for the planned visit to Khor Rori with its mighty Taqah Castle.
The western coastal strip is even more impressive, with two things in particular sticking in our memory alongside the blowholes (vertical holes in the coastal cliffs from which crashing waves blow spray vertically upwards), which unfortunately weaken due to the low tide and season, and Wadi Khor, which is also dry:
- Following the recommendation of a nice Omani, after a tedious one-hour walk up the rocky wadi, we search for and find the entrance to the Ayn Ghedh, a fantastically beautiful waterfall, in whose shimmering blue-turquoise pool I take a refreshing dip and hardly want to stop.
- The road to the next highlight is also paved with hardship. Via another masterpiece of Omani road engineering through the towering foothills of the Dhofar Mountains, which reach right up to the coast, and a subsequent 5 km long, extremely steep off-road track, we reach the wild and romantic Fizadyah beach, a unique landscape sensation! Individual bizarre boulders jut out of the wonderfully fine sand, in which thousands of crabs cavort, forming an extraordinary backdrop with the mountain slopes bordering the short plain. Unfortunately, the short twilight phase sets in immediately after our arrival, so we are denied a swim on this beach.
Our excursion to this almost paradisiacal corner of the world around the lovely city of Salalah ends with a festive dinner to mark the 22nd anniversary of our meeting in the very elegant gourmet restaurant L’Avenue, which provides us with an appropriate setting for this event.
