A Land of Randoms

After living in the land of perpetual heat, sand, and construction cranes, I have not been surprised in a while. After driving through Oman for a week, I had my fair share of strange and random happenings. Qatar is fully a desert from what I have witnessed with not much variety. In Oman, we would be driving through beautiful red mountains and in the next minute, they were brown, and then, there would be steps built right into the side. What? Read More...

After a few hiccups including driving in the wrong direction and not being able to start the car and having to call the rental company again (never used a keyless car before, whoops...), we were finally on our way! After successfully (and not painlessly) receiving my license in Qatar, I was excited to get out and drive. Terrey does not have a valid license so I would be playing chauffeur and she would be my copilot. 

After driving through the mountains and my first sighting of goats along the road (more on this later), we started having glimpses of the stairs built into the mountains. Although I have many theories of why there might be giant sized steps built, I will just chalk it up to Oman being a very random country. Regardless of purpose, I did feel the need to pull over and try to climb them, of course.

After driving for a couple hours, we finally arrived at our destination: the Wadi Shab Resort. While booking our trip, we had heard that Tiwi Beach, which is about 50 km north of the town Sur, was a beautiful and a must see. 

It was a beautiful place to lay by the pool and enjoy both the beach and the mountains. After laying around all afternoon, we decided to take a trip into Sur for dinner.

After learning that some restaurants don't serve food until 7 o'clock (what???), we ended up at a delicious Indian restaurant where we had warm, fresh garlic naan and chicken tikka masala. 

Terrey and I are both taking a photography class in Doha. That night, we decided to test out our cameras with the world's smallest tripod.

Tony, our teacher, has stressed from the beginning of class how important a good tripod is. When I saw this one on display at the Panasonic store underneath my apartment, I could not resist it. Tony did not find it as funny as I did, but it is kind of perfect for my mirrorless DSLR. Granted, it does look a bit silly with Terrey's camera.

Although this does not count as a good, stable tripod, it did its job for the night.

The next day brought upon the most random of adventures.

While you drive up the coast, you will see nothing but dry land and random trees and shrubs along the road with mountains in the distance.

But if you venture in past a fence and follow the locals as they walk past a mostly deserted playground, you will come upon one of the most beautiful and random things I have ever seen, the Bimmah Sinkhole.

All of the sudden, there is a huge hole in the ground with turquoise water in the bottom. When you climb down the stairs to the water, you see that there are people lounging around the edge while some people venture into the water where you are surrounded by tiny little fish that have been known to nibble at your toes and eat the dead skin off your feet (which some people pay big money for at luxury spas).

The people that do not venture in watch from high above as people climb a rope on the side and jump into the water.

I chose to follow the lead and jump off the side, although I chose not climb to the higher ridge. I tried to play it safe, but still ended up with a huge scrape and bruise on my shin.

After leaving the sinkhole, we wandered down to the beach to look around.

As we drove away, we did have to stop to let a group of goats pass by, thus beginning a love affair I could not control. The goats were all over the sides of the road, occasionally having to run after their friends that have left them behind. I was constantly on the lookout for more goats to squeal over.

We stopped by some of the famous wadis. Wadis are deep ravines in the mountains that are almost always dried up until the rainy seasons when they become a green oasis. The pictures don't do it justice as the water was a beautiful green and it was slightly cooler and refreshing in the shade.

We did find one that was less crowded and even more beautiful.

We drove down a path alongside the water where you could see children playing and families having picnics in the shade. There was a point where our small little car could not play with the big 4x4s anymore and unfortunately, we had to turn back. 

That night, we had dinner at the resort in preparation for leaving the next day. Once again, we practiced our night photography.

Disclaimer: As I was driving most of the time and also unfortunately am not Elastigirl and cannot take photos of myself, some of the landscape photos and pictures of me were taken by my friend Terrey.