The desert safari camp was all that I expected and so much more. After riding 20 minutes through the desert driving on the sand, we arrived at our camp.
Our camp consisted of about 20 huts, a kitchen/dining room, an outdoor living room, and a campfire.
Oh, and I forgot about the bathrooms. Compared to this, the restrooms at the Grand Mosque were absolutely fit for a king, I mean Sultan. The sign is to remind guests to place used toilet paper in the trash bin and not down the toilet, since it will clog the septic system.
And here is a view from the living room. This may have been my favorite part as I could just lounge, relax, and just do nothing.
At sunset, they took us up to the top of the dunes. It was amazing to hear absolutely nothing. The sunset was not the best because there were storm clouds rolling in. This will be important later on.
The next morning came very slow from one of the worst nights rests in my near term memory. It was hot. And because of the rain, there were mosquitoes. And because of the mosquitoes, I had to cover my body with a blanket, which only made it hotter. Anyways, morning brought camel rides. Here is my buddy. We decided to call him Kevin. No idea why.
And we took off as a group though the desert on camelback. I'd say overall, that it was a lot of fun, but very uncomfortable. Camels tend to have a ridge right down the middle of their backs. Even with the cushions, it feels a bit like a wedgy.
After the camp, we took off to Wadi Bin Klalid. In order to get there, we had to take the cars through several rivers that were overflowing from their banks, because of the rain. This is usually the parking lot.
It is a beautiful canyon area with several natural pools to swim in with a cave at the end of the short 1km hike/swim. It turns out that it was a very good idea to leave my phone/camera behind as it would have been soaked.
As I was swimming back after the hike up, there was a Pakistani family sitting at one of the bridges. Several men were jumping off a cliff about 20 feet high. As I swan by, they challenged me to jump also. I immediately was up to the challenge. It was really cute as there were several children, grandmas, and grandpas. They were all excited to see this white guy jump. They all very excitedly counted down from 10, and I jumped.
I headed off with plenty of time to get to Jannica's choir concert, but there was a problem I did not expect. Apparently, several of the dams had filled up with the rain last week and then again today. And when dams fill up, the leak over the edge. I was delayed by about 90 minutes because of the slowed traffic going through the rivers. I made it to Jannica's concert only 20 minutes late, which was fine since they didn't start singing until 30 minutes in. So perfect timing. More on Jannica's choir concert later.
My flight was not until 5am the next morning. I had a hard time justifying a hotel when I had to be at the airport 3 hours early. Jannica's flight was right after midnight, so she didn't have to worry about this dilemma. So I took off to discover the sights of Muscat at night. I have no idea what this mosque is called. I thought it looked really cool.
This is the Sultans Palace. I was a little disappointed that it was not more Aladdin like. Still cool though.
And finally, the Grand Mosque at night.
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