I had to wait a bit for the dew on the tent to dry before I could pack it up, so I studied the off road book a bit more. Next stop shall be Wadi Al Shab, a partly dried out river bed in a canyon with supposedly nice cool pools of fresh water. So after packing it all up I set off driving along the coast road which very quickly turned into a sand track and for the first time engaged AWD. How cool was that, driving along a dusty road in Oman, coast to the left mountain ranges to the right in an Off Road Car ( I didn't even mind the radio didn't work).
It went down and up again, left and right, a big dust cloud behind me passing through small villages (and yes, I did slow down to reduce the amount of dust there) until I was forced to turn right and head back towards the highway. Unfortunately there was no crossing to the other side of the dual carriage way, so that I had to get back on the Motorway and drive all the 15 Km (approximately) I just gained off road to be able to turn and get on the other side going south again.
After that I arrived at Wadi (al) Shab and it was still so early that no one was there, which initially I didn't mind, until I found out you need to take a boat to cross the pool in order to start your hike along the canyon. A couple of minutes later, though the boat guy came and brought me across and I could start my walk. "My walk" I thought it was going to be, but it was actually quite challenging because after passing through some dry rocky river beds there was no way to tell where the path was any more I walked up the side of the canyon a bit until I got to a place where I couldn't imagine, that normal tourists would continue. I heard there is a waterfall here and I didn't see any waterfalls along the way that were noteworthy, so I continued a little bit up the slopes of the canyon until it was just not possible to continue without proper equipment and I had to turn back. Good decision as it turned out. When I got back to the first pool met a three Dutch Women of three generations and they showed me this secret waterfall was. You had to swim through the canyon, pass a couple of pools and sandbanks, climb up two or three smaller waterfalls to get to a larger pool (the third pool).
It was just breathtaking to swim through this canyon and then get to a little hole in the wall through which you could swim into a cave where the waterfall was hiding. The sun that lit up the water in aquamarine blue which contrasted with the bright beige rock.
The additional perks within this cave (which was open in to the outside in some spots to let in some light) was a rope next to the waterfall which you could climb up and then crawl out of the cave. From there you could walk around to another opening and jump back into the water in the cave from a rock. The other feature were the stalactites that were in the cave and through which you could swim. Just an amazing place. If you should ever visit to Oman, this is a must. Just look at the pictures.
Another must was some food at this point, and since I was travelling through the old Dhow construction capital of Arabia, "Sur", I planned for some grub there. Pretty quick I found a nice Indian place and a filling meal for just over 4 Euro. The Dhow museum was closed unfortunately but you could still see some in the bay and tried to get a sneak peak above some of the walls behind I could hear hammering and sawing.
From here I drove to Ras Al Jinz, which is a turtle preservation and research facility. I really struggled to stay awake a bit along this drive and had to pull over and have a nap in the car. It must be the heat here and the nice but monotonous inland roads. I also to fill up the car (there was still 1/4 left in the tank but I certainly didn't want to get stuck in the desert without aircon). The 45 litres that fit in the tank cost me 10 € and I didn't even need to get out of the car. Why would you even think about buying and economical car in this place (and I hear Saudi Arabia is even cheaper).
At the research facility I was told that the female turtles would come in the evening to lay their eggs on the beach and I should come back at 20:30 for a tour.
This gave me a good three hours to find a spot for camping. I thought the beach was a nice idea and remembered the Dutch guys saying there was a good spot in Ras al Hadd just 15 km to the north. I drove over there but when trying to set up the tent the wind really picked up and it was impossible. So I decided to just sleep in the car on the beach, but also this was not going to happen since a guy came around and told me this wasn't ok.
There was a tourist camp site near Ras al Jinz, and after haggling a bit because I was the only guest that night anyway I got the price down to half of it.
A little hut/tent for 10 OMR. But they had a shower. At 20:30 I drove back to the Turtle place and ran into my Dutch friends. We were all in the same group and went down to the beach in a little bus. It was of course totally dark and only the guides were allowed to use torches in order not to scare or irritate the turtles. We were able to spot a large green turtle (about a meter in length and 150kg in weight) having already build a pit (they use their front paddles for the general pit and their back paddles for a smaller pit within the large pit) and started laying eggs in it. I believe it is about 100 eggs each time. Then a little later the turtle started covering the pit with sand.
The temperature of the sand actually determines the sex of the turtle baby (warm for girls/cold of boys). Unfortunately only 3 to 5 of 1000 turtles ever make it to adulthood. A little later we were lucky enough to also see little hatchlings crawling down the sand towards the sea (well... most of them, a few had to be turned around). It was just incredible to see something like this. It was better than watching David Attenborough in Full HD and that is setting the bar very high already.
The days keep getting better and better...
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