(and there are pictures that accompany this post)
In a caravan of white 4-wheel drive SUVs we drive Northeast toward the desert loop. 2 other students, a professor and our driver, Yusef, make up the occupants of the car that's leading the pack, my car. Sultan, our Arabic professors, fumbles through his bag for a few seconds and reveals a deck of square cards, and thus began our discussion of life on the road.
The cards were prompts that posed questions about our values and our understanding of the world, and surprisingly I learned the breadth of diversity that exists between the views of western-educated college students. The questions were written in Arabic and translated to English (on select cards this became clear because of the poor translation). Despite my skepticism of such a contrived attempt at deep conversation, I participated openly.
"What is time?"
The questions began, and we passed off the first several as too deliberately vague, but we continued,
" Is it ever justifiable to kill?"
Not unsurprisingly, all of the American pacifistic students responded with a loud "NO," but our Arab friends explained a conditional understanding. And so the game went, through various questions such as:
"Do Islam, Judaism and Christianity share the same God?"
"Should people have absolute say over their personal actions?"
"What is Freedom?"
"Is Democracy the best political system?"
And then we reached and interesting question, "Should men practice polygamy?"
The Americans (in chorus, although we weren't on most things) responded to the injustice that exists when only men are allowed to marry multiple wives, but others aren't allowed multiple spouses. Sultan explained the rationale that back in the time of the Prophet Mohammed a woman would've been unable to distinguish the father of her child if she was allowed to marry more than one husband (and also the call in Islam for men to propagate, and to treat each spouse equally). Despite our disagreement, we politely explained that we understood the rationale, and then found out that our driver had 2 wives (whew! we dodged that bullet). The three hours seemed short with our continued conversation that eventually branched off from the prompts, as our car turned off the road and onto the sand.
Arriving at Wahiba sands I immediately remembered a scene from Aladdin. The cartoon character is lead into the desert and finds a treasure that opens up from inside of the sand dunes, I am pretty sure this treasure might be lurking inside the dunes near the beduin desert camp at Wahiba. I remember that in the movie, Aladdin was walking barefoot through the sand, and I now realize the inconsistencies of Disney's portrayal of the story. After arriving at the desert camp, several students ran for the sand boards (which are snow boards that are used to ski down the dunes) and found out very quickly that walking back up barefoot caused blisters on the bottoms of their feet, not to mention extreme discomfort (luckily I wanted until sunset to sand board, after the sand had cooled down significantly). I'll leave most of the description of this camp to the photographs, except to say that the desert camp was fantastic for the evening and unbearable after 8 am (the temperature rises a lot after sunrise).
At Wahiba we visited a beduin camp, with real beduin, who didn't tell us how life was for them but instead let a tour guide speak for them. They served us kahuwa (or coffee and dates) and politely pushed their children out of our way (or away from us). I don't want to seem like I'm saying the beduin aren't friendly, instead I think that the tourism to Wahiba is contingent upon a certain understanding of beduin life that the beduin themselves might mess up if allowed to speak honestly to visitors. Nevertheless, we went dune bashing (which I'm sure is a daily aspect of beduin life : ) and it was awesome!
Thursday (October 8th) we visited an abandoned village (or mostly abandoned, we found that out the awkward way) and viewed the Falaj system (which is a system that used to bring spring water from the wadis in the mountains to the people in the towns, that was all before SUVs started delivering it everywhere--even to the beduin). Today the Falaj water is used for livestock and cleaning purposes, not for drinking. Thursday evening we also saw the turtles at the Ras Al Jinz Scientific Center, which brought up the extremely underdeveloped understanding of environmental conservation that exists in Oman. In groups of 30, tourists are allowed to stumble around, falling in and our of sea turtle holes tromping on baby turtles, within a foot of the mothers who are burying their eggs. Needless to say, I had difficulty sleeping that night (but I'm still not a vegetarian, Matthew).
Finally, Friday we adventured to the Wadi Shab. After hiking the 45 minutes trek passed the gorgeous views in the canyon, we were forced to wade through the wadi (with bags overhead) and finally incapable of bringing our cameras (so I borrowed some previously taken pictures for photobucket so as to give an idea of the area). The main attraction at the wadi is the cave that is accessible through a small passageway (just large enough for my head to fit through above the water). We swam through the passage and inside found a room with large cliffs and 10-15 Indian expatriates. A rope served as a ladder and a waterfall provided footing to climb to the top of the room (and outside), and a shelf served as seating on the sides of the room. Several students jumped off the small cliffs into the deep water at their base, and those seated on the shelf proved to be an adoring audience. Overall, the room was thrilling and the experience was definitely worth replicating (if you ever find yourself in Oman).
Despite the fact that all tourists visit the same places I described as part of the "desert loop" which brings tourists up and east from Muscat, and back around to the new highway in the span of a couple of days, the tours are worth visiting for their natural beauty, although I would not suggest the turtle watching.
