Road-Tripping Through Oman The Wall Street Journal | A drive across the country to Muscat includes dune-driving, hiking the Al Hajar mountains and exploring Nizwa Fort I AM NOT a born adventurer. Which is not to say that the appeal of the unfamiliar or the power of nature is lost on me; nor do I suffer from a lack of curiosity. But I don’t like heights, and I’m not particularly fond of not knowing what comes next. So when I find myself some 9,000 feet above sea level, tiptoeing along a narrow path on the side of Jebel Shams—the highest mountain in Oman and part of the Al Hajar range, which curves along the Arab country’s northern coast—I can’t help but think that I’ve come a long way. Below me are the unforgiving, rusty brown ravines of Wadi Ghul, known as the Grand Canyon of the Middle East; above, the jagged peaks seem to rise higher and higher into cloudless skies. “So do you feel like Indiana Jane yet?” asks my French boyfriend, Jerome, who is waiting for me to catch up. He grew up in the Alps and for him happiness is climbing up, skiing down or just looking at a mountain. “A little,” I say, watching where I put my feet, as the so-called trail is barely perceptible. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t confirmed that the cragged facades look steeper than they really are. We reach a bend where the cliffs form a towering U-shape around us, then we sit on a boulder and eat an orange. We don’t say much; it feels somehow impolite to disturb the quiet. Two days before, we’d set out on the five-day, 500-mile road trip from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to Muscat, the capital of Oman, in search of such serenity. That, and the diverse and rugged landscapes for which Oman is known, including towering mountain ranges, stretches of untouched desert and lush oases tucked in rocky canyons. >> wsj/articles/road-tripping-through-oman-1419011552 #Oman #Muscat #travel #myOman #TravelToOman
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 05:00:01 +0000
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