Oman: Wadi Shab's a bit sticky

Roger the Donkey’s braying woke most of us up (except Jamie) at 4.30am this morning. Later, after the sun had been up for a while, someone mentioned during breakfast that this could be our last trip to Fins, which filled us with great sadness (although the taxi incident suggests it may be the right time).

With the camping equipment back in the car, we headed for Wadi Shab. The steep road leading into the area was blocked with piles of stones as the road had been washed away during the recent rain. We therefore continued on the highway to Tiwi, taking the old road to access the area from the other side.

After taking the stupid little ferry (my previous question about whether they are going to keep this has been answered by the now permanent sign stating the journey is 200bz each way), we had to wade through ankle-deep slimy brown mud to get into the wadi. It was quite comical watching all the people who didn’t want to get their shoes dirty.

There was still a large amount of water in the valley, which often required a bit of lateral thinking to get round various small waterfalls and flooded areas. The aflaj overflowed with clear, fast-running water which helped keep us cool on the hike to the pools.

At the end of the wadi, the cave was filled with the sight and sounds of a very angry waterfall, which made loitering inside inadvisable. The attempts to swim the last pool by a group of barely-able Omani swimmers also seemed less than sensible.
We ambled back past several groups of Europeans strangely heading into the wadi at 4.00pm. After negotiating the sticky mud one more time, we returned to the car park, past piles of rubbish left by DIRTY, FILTHY PEOPLE for lamb and Arabic bread sandwiches before blasting back to Muscat.

Back home, the cats were pretty miffed as Koof’s belly clock had gone off a couple of hours ago. The house also smelled like a sewage farm which happens when they are left for a few days thanks to Omani drainage systems. Earlier plans to go to a restaurant were abandoned in favour of a nice vat of spaggy bol, followed, somewhat unnecessarily in my book, by profiteroles and sticky chocolate sauce. Mmmmm.....