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As we learned, besides cycling, Oman is a country to be discovered in 4 x 4’s. Everyone seems to be driving one (a white one, too), and they are sometimes the only means one has to easily traverse big rocks, dips, hills, and even the desert. Tracks of 4 x 4’s can be seen everywhere and once we drove one, I completely understood why. We did not plan to rent a car, though. Our plan was to take a bus from where we stopped cycling in the south to Nizwa, in order to explore that area on a bike. However, when the bus was approaching our destination, we realized the stop was on a highway with no shoulder, lots of traffic, and on a steep uphill. It just did not feel right. So on a whim, we decided not to get off and instead go all the way to Muscat and re-think our plans. We paid the difference in fare to the driver. After asking us about our change of plans, he offered to take us to our destination the following day, in his truck, for free (kindness in Oman just blew my mind over and over). In the end, we decided to rest for a few days in Muscat, take a shower, do laundry, and then rent a car to explore the Nizwa area. We booked our hotel online right there on the bus–we were so dirty and smelly that we thought if we showed up at a hotel in such a state no one in their right minds would let us stay there. But once booked, no one could say no! Our "Pajero" We packed our Mitsubishi Pajero to the brim and felt super cool going to where the bikes could not. We had a very easy time finding and reaching remote wild camping spots, under the stars, between the mountains, on the rocks, in the desert. There was no need to push our overloaded bikes for 1 km of sand, sweating profusely. We just pulled up to the spot. If we ever felt scared (and we did, once), we could all jump into the car and feel protected. Like the time we heard a loud and unrecognizable animal noise when in total darkness and in the middle of nowhere. In 2 seconds the kids and I were inside the car. Horacio stayed put, with a headlamp, waiting to see if he would hear it again. And he did, just closer and louder. That time he also jumped into the car, probably faster than we had. We tried to figure out whether it was safe to camp or not and were searching the internet to see what wild animals lived in the area. Could it be a striped hyena? An oryx perhaps? A wild cat? A leopard? Or just a goat or a camel? It didn’t matter, we were safe in our Pajero. Should we just sleep inside with the windows slightly open? At some point we heard a lot of honking not far from us. Eventually, we thought it didn’t make sense to sleep in the car and ventured out. By next morning, we agreed that the noise was probably a camel and it might have wandered close to the road, which could have been what caused the crazy honking. We will never know for sure. I did find a scorpion happily sleeping under our tent, though. Poor thing, it ran away when we lifted the tent, probably as scared as we had been the night before. In the end, we were all good to go. Below some pics of our time on the car: Towards the end of our week in our Pajero, we visited our friend Mohammed and his family, this time in their beautiful hometown, Samail. As time would tell, we would remain friends and they followed us through our journey, keeping track of our whereabouts, letting us know we were in safe locations, and assuring us that if need be, they or their friends would easily be able to help. I hope we will be able to see each other again in the future–here, there, or somewhere else. For our last nights of traveling in Oman, we decided to go to the desert again (a different one). We drove the Pajero into the dunes, beyond all settlements and lights, until we thought we couldn't get any further (and until our wheels scared us by getting temporarily stuck in the sand). As we were setting up camp, we had our only guest–a man driving about 10 young kids in his truck, all smiling. They stopped to say hi and chat and we wished each other well. We couldn't have asked for a better last night in Oman–the colors of the sky and the sand, the warmth, the stars, the wind, and the absolute silence. Thank you, Oman. Comments are closed.
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