Road Trip Oman

Our road trip through Oman took us to Wahiba Sands, a huge body of sand covering 12,500 square kilometers. Here we put up our tent on the soft orange sand and fell asleep to the sounds of the wind. The next morning we were woken up by some voices. As we emerged from our tent, we were met by a group of young boys. They asked if we had had breakfast and proceeded to offer us pepsi – lovely breakfast :-) Afterwards they helped us take down the tent and carry our stuff back to the car, by now we don’t get so surprised anymore when we are met by the friendliness of the Omani people, but we still forget sometimes. When trying to cross a street one day on foot, a taxi stopped just before us on the road. I waved for it to pass, as I was sure he simply wanted to pick up the tourists (us) and get paid well. When he didn’t pass, I gave him a stern look and waved impatiently again – then I realized that he hadn’t stopped to try and pick us up, but instead was simply very courteous and stopped so we could cross the otherwise traffic crowded street. It’s so easy to make stereotypes and misjudge…



Our next stop was Sur a quiet sea side town with a very pretty corniche; Sur is famous for dhow building and we did see some of these big wooden boats bopping around in the waters around Sur. Close by is the famous beach of Ras Al Jinz, not famous for swimming or anything – but for its turtles who come to nest here. It was interesting to see the big turtles come ashore to lay their eggs, but even more fun to see the little ones make their way down to the ocean for the very first time!


Wadi Shab is known as one of Oman’s beauty spots and it really is beautiful! Wadi means something along the lines of a river bed – these are often located in a gorge. We walked into the gorge with towering red cliffs on each side, water flows through the wadi throughout the year and has created several pools big enough for swimming. The water was crystal clear and we saw many little fish (and a big one too…!) swimming around alongside us. The locals use the water to irrigate small, small plots where they grow grass for their animals as well as date palms. It was so nice to see greenery again after the drives through Oman’s very dry and barren landscape. Our long walk winded through the gorge, and even along the cliffs high above it – looking down on the greenery was amazing...and a bit scary at times, when the footpath narrowed into less than a meter wide, with a vertical drop of 20 meters to one side and sheer cliff face to the other, offering little handhold and even less comfort :-)

We spend that night on a nearby beach called Tiwi Beach or White Beach named so because of its beautiful, white sand. A lovely place to camp!




Our very last stop before returning to Muscat was “The Sinkhole” it sounded a bit strange when described in the guidebook, a sinkhole is a natural depression or hole in the surface topography caused by the removal of soil or bedrock, this removal is often caused by water. Moreover, according to local legend, a demon lives in the water, the sinkhole is actually called “Bait Al Afreet” which means “house of the demon”. Of course we had to visit this “house of the demon”! When we got there we were very pleasantly surprised, it turns out demons have excellent taste in houses. The sinkhole was about 40m x 20m big, and apparently the depth has never been measured, we descended down a very long staircase made for some mythical breed of giant people; if you were to judge by the size of the steps. The water had an amazing blue color and in my opinion it has to be one of the most beautiful spots in Oman! We swam and snorkeled, Martin even found some lost money (about 15kr all together). I just hope that the locals don’t treat it like a wishing-well and that we will be forever cursed for having picked up the money… Well at least we had a lovely day in the demon’s hole!

A Visit to the People who Click

It was raining and the sky was hanging low and grey over our heads, we were on our way to Bulungula; a community run place by the ocean on the wild coast. It is deep in the Xhosa homeland, and the roads are somewhere in between horrible and non-existent – the first part of the way down to the coast is gravel roads, which you do in your own car, be warned, it’s not easy driving, especially after rain. You park your car about an hour away from this place and they come and pick you up in a sturdy 4x4, something we discovered was very much needed. It had been rainy weather for the last few days, so the track was pretty wet and slippery, at places the driver simply chose to go besides the track! It was a fun and VERY bumpy ride; no way would our Citi Golf have made it.



The community run a variety of little tours, we opted for one called “Women Power” were you get to partake in the everyday of a Xhosa woman. We collected water and carried it back to the little round hut on our heads; we cooked and we talked. The two young women, who were our guides for the day, were about my age, both unmarried and both had respectively 1 and 2 kids. The reason they were unmarried was that any young man who wish to marry, must pay a bride-price of 10 cows to the bride’s family, each cow cost about 5000 rand (about 3300kr). Cici-wu (as one of the girls were called) said that when her boyfriend came to her family’s hut her father would chase him away with a stick, because the boyfriend doesn’t have 10 cows (or any cows for that matter) to pay for her. We asked her if he was saving up for the cows; he was, but it would probably take a long time, she added. It seems that this system had the girls all ending up pregnant but with no husbands…



While hearing the Xhosa chatter away among themselves, we very soon heard something that is very special indeed. Xhosa language has, as many other of the South African languages, some sounds that we Europeans have a hard time mimicking; the clicks. Xhosa language sounds very foreign, but when you hear the various clicking sounds in midsentence, you know that this is truly another world. Xhosa is actually pronounced “’Click-sound’-oohsa”.





Another day was spent paddling a canoe up the nearby Xora river, a lovely way to relax and watch the amazing scenery. We spotted a few Kamikaze Fish jumping out of the river, a big turtle in the water and a beautiful kingfisher hovering above the lake and swiftly diving for a small fish. Walking in the wide, totally deserted beach, with big waves crashing onto the cliffs in the distance, we felt a world away from civilization; which we might actually have been…

Twyfelfontein

Twyfelfontein is a magical area of huge boulders interspersed by impressive rock engraving galleries and the main area with engravings is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At the nicely laid out visitors center that perfectly blends into the surroundings we were met by a guide (guides are compulsory). He was a very intelligent and well informed young man and we had a nice talk while walking around looking at the engravings. The engravings are believed to be up to 6000 years old and have been done by the San, a nomadic hunter-gather people that have lived in Namibia always it seems. All the engravings are of animals, except for a few human footprints. There were elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, lions etc. but quite surprisingly there were also depicted flamingos and seals - which live by the coast. Our guide told us that it is believed the San travelled to the coast to collect salt, a journey that would take 6 months! We were there at midday and the hot African sun was beating down on us relentlessly - it was damn hot!





We are camping at a community run place called Granietkop Campsite, it is the cheapest place we have camped so far at 40 Namibian dollars per person, and the setting here is stunning! The camp ground is laid out around a hill made out of big orange boulders and the individual sites are placed around this hill. Each site has its own “kitchen area” with a sink as well as a shower and toilet that are incorporated into the boulders and the cliff side – our toilet came with a great view too. It’s part of the NACOBTA organization, which have many community run campsites around Namibia – quite a lot of them sounds very appealing! (http://www.nacobta.com.na/)

Our site is really secluded and it feels like we are the only people in all of Namibia, while we are sitting here looking out over the beautiful landscape that stretches out beneath us. We ate a lovely meal that we cooked on our camping stove as the sun set casting an orange light over the boulders making them look like they were almost on fire. Later as the shiny full moon rose we retired into our tent for a peaceful night’s sleep, next morning however we woke up to the sounds of two little rat dassies who had found a packet of biscuits that we had left out the night before…

Crazy About Cheetahs

A couple of hours from Etosha National Park the Nel Family has a huge farm and years back they caught some cheetahs who very poaching on their livestock. They wanted to release the cheetahs into Etosha National Park, but the government wouldn’t allow it. The Nels released the cheetahs back in the wild, but kept a litter of pubs that were born while in captivity. Since then the family have taken in injured cheetahs and they try to buy cheetahs off other farmers who trap them, but it is hard as game farms where you can shoot the game offer 10 times the price the Nels can afford.

They now have a few tame cheetahs by their house and some huge enclosures out in the bush where they keep the wild ones, they encourage visitors to come in the hopes of increasing awareness of the plight of these wild animals.

We of course had to see this and we were not disappointed! First we were taken to their garden, and under the blossoming jacaranda trees were 3 cheetahs; 2 adults and a young one. The little one was racing around playing and we could pet all of them, one of the adults started licking my leg – its tongue was so coarse it almost hurt, but what an amazing experience to have such a beautiful animal so close to me! In the end it found me pretty tasty apparently and would like a little taste… But it didn’t really bite and I quickly got away! Cheetahs are not just big house cats :-)


After lots of petting they fed the 3 cheetahs, a big lump of raw meat to each.


Then it was time for a break in their bush bar, we had a few drinks and chatted to some of the other travelers, amongst others there was an overland truck with lots of lively people!

Around sunset everybody piled up the back of the pick-up trucks and drove out into the bush and into the enclosures with buckets full of raw meat. The mood in the back of our truck was high as we saw the first cheetah, and then another one and another one. It was an incredible sight to see them approaching through the high grass, and these were definitely wild – they were growling and hissing and generally looking quite mean! A few of them also made some pretty cute kitty purrs though. Soon the meat was thrown to them and a feeding frenzy broke out!

What a day and what amazing and beautiful animals!

The Taj!

We took a train to Agra, which is not the most interesting nor charming city, but it does have one thing going for it – Taj Mahal. It was surprisingly quiet and peaceful at the Taj Mahal, mostly Indian tourists. They also only have to pay 10 rupees to get in, whereas foreigners have to pay a whooping 750 rupees. But I guess it is worth it, it really is beautiful. We took a quiet little moment on a bench, Martin looking at the Taj Mahal me looking into the tree above us, as there were a whole family of green parrots living in it! What beautiful birds.



We even had a view of the Taj from our room - through the bars that were designed to keep the monkeys out. We did have a monkey looking in from time to time, as well as a squirrel, a mouse and a lot of little flies, yes it was quite the little zoo… None of them really bothered us though, only the flies were kind of annoying.



We are in the train as I’m writing this, from Agra to Jaipur. The train was over 2 hours late, luckily there is much to keep you entertained at an Indian train station, trains coming and going, people getting on and off, all of them clambering over the tracks, a band of monkeys were patrolling the station, finding leftovers to eat and getting a little too close for comfort as I was eating a banana! Suddenly a white cow came running down the platform. Then a family got off the train and made camp at the platform to net themselves, mom was combing her hair, applying a bindi and putting on make-up while the father and son brushed their teeth. Meanwhile an older woman was taking a shower little further down the platform, naked from the waist up – this is India.

Cascade d’Ouzoud in Morocco

A highlight of a trip to Morocco is a trip to Cascade d’Ouzoud, labeled by the Lonely Planet as Morocco’s “best waterfalls”, and it really is a beautiful place!
The Ouzoud Waterfalls (110 m high) are located in the Grand Atlas village of Tanaghmeilt, in the province of Azilal, 150 km north-east of Marrakech, in Morocco. The falls are easily reached by car, you arrive here by passing through the tiny village of Ouzoud, continue pass the souvenir stalls (sometimes you have to move some of the stalls displays to get through) and the small stalls selling food and drinks, and start climbing down the stairs pass the many cafes. Right before starting on the stairs, you will have had your first view over the water falls, continue down and it just gets better and better!
We loved it there, the place had a very laid back feeling to it, and the falls were beautiful, too bad it was a little too cold to swim in the pools underneath the falls – some young Moroccan guys didn’t seem to mind though, and had a good splash around :-)



We stayed in the small and very simple guesthouse, that was right by the tracks to the waterfall. It was inexpensive and a fine place to stay the night.

Jaipur

The time had come for us to start our assault at Rajasthan, the fairytale state of India. And we were quite excited about it. I still had very fond memories of the places I visited in Rajasthan almost 5 years ago, and the guidebook dreamily describes places like the big Meherangah fort that looms over the bright blue city of Jodhpur, the giant gold sandcastle at Jaisalmer, the palace in the lake at Udaipur, the carnival charm of Pushkar, the storybook whimsy of Bundi, and everywhere filled with happy, waving children, tons of camels, soulful music, glittering saris, big piles of chilies all over the place and tottering turbans in all the colors of the rainbow.



But as in all great fairytales some terrible times have to be fought through before getting to the good part, and that terrible time for us was Jaipur.
We started out arriving 4 hours later than expected because of the train being late. Then at the train station we were given a tough time by the auto rickshaw drivers who want to take you to a hotel where they get a commission, we finally found a pre-paid one (they are slightly more decent) then one of the commission touts tried to ride along – we had to tell him to get out! Then we could go looking for a hotel. We hauled our backpacks round to several that were full, before ending up at an overpriced one with a rock hard bed and a non-functioning shower. We took it. The cycle rickshaw we took into the old city dropped us of the wrong place, and of course he didn’t have change for our 100 rupees note either…

The streets of Jaipur were so filled with traffic it felt kinda dangerous to walk around, and dangerous to breathe the air thick with exhaust fumes. The place we had dinner decided to try and cheat us and billed us for double the agreed amount, at this point I was ready to kill someone, but tried to be reasonable and tell the restaurant manager that you can’t just change an already agreed to price, but he was not up for talking about it logically – so we just left the agreed amount on the table and told him if he had a problem with that he could call the police. Then the rickshaw driver we took back to our hotel had Martin walking up all the hills as it was too heavy for him (!) And rest of the time he pushed the bike instead of riding it, so we might as well have walked home. He then tried to get us to shop at his friend’s shop, before finally dropping us off at the hotel and asking for more money than what he had first stated.
We left Jaipur early the next morning.