I’ve been to Oman quite a few times – never had my passport
stamped for it. Al Ain, a village in the
UAE, shares its borders with Oman – in a very strange way; in the days before
black gold, Al Ain was very important: In Al Ain, hidden deep under the desert sands, are huge caverns filled all year round with cool clear spring water. Al Ain (Arabic: العين, al-ʿayn) literally means the spring,and for years and years ownership
of the small village was ferociously warred over by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi
–later part of the UAE - and Oman. It
was finally decided to share the village between the two countries. Somewhere in Al Ain there is a road with
three speed bumps. Once you’re over the
last hump you find yourself in Oman in a village, which after the speed bumps
is called Buraimi. We used to live in Al
Ain (BC - before children) and those three bumps were at the beginning of many
of our scariest, most wonderful and most memorable desert adventures.
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| Bubble on a road-trip to Oman |
This time however, we went into Oman very very
officially. In order for me and the
children to change over from our tourist visas to our residency visas we had to
leave the country, have our passports stamped out and stamped in again. Since Oman is only about 100km from Dubai it
was the most sensible destination. Our
road trip got off after the second try - we forgot that our rental car doesn’t
have international insurance, fortunately for us Richard and Marianne’s Bubble
does. Around 20km outside of Dubai the last buildings disappear in
the heat-born haze and the white desert sand stretch around you as far as the
eye can see. The openness of the desert
speaks to my soul – always has. Why it
is that the desert landscape intrigues me so I cannot say – perhaps because the
Little Prince said: “every desert hides
a well,” perhaps because of the open skies and complete horizon, perhaps
because here, life is precarious but uncomplicated, minimalistic and large at
the same time, serene and scary, yes, perhaps that is it – the contrasts.
After a while the white sand dunes turns into red, shaded in
deep brown, black and sometimes even purple.
There is a sand dune known as Big Red, where there is always human
activity. The monstrous dune is an
eternal challenge for those who think their particular brand of 4x4 vehicle
will be the one to make it to the top or their driving skills will prove
superior to the rest. From the road the
SUVs on the slope resemble toy cars and the odd incident where a vehicle come
rolling down the side of the dune rarely cause panic – it just seems too unreal.
Shortly after Big Red one starts to see Mountains in the
distance. Mountains with a BIG M.
Resembling silk paintings they disappear into the distance in hues of
blues and purple. I always thought
Tolkien must’ve modeled his Mordor after these giants. High up in these rough mountains are little
villages where roses are grown - some of the best rosewater in the world come
from here. All along the road we find
wadis,*some filled with cool clear water and some dry, treacherously waiting
for the uninformed tourist to wander down.
The wadis can become flooded in seconds with rainwater from the
mountains - flashing down with tragic results for anyone trapped in its
way.
Every now and again one glimpses green
oasis hidden in the folds of the mountains.
Proud villas perched on higher ground dots the area, their high walls
undulating ownership across the rolling landscape.
We had our passports stamped out at the UAE border to bring
us to the end of our stay on our tourist visas.
At the Omani border we parked our car in the parking area, purchased
Omani tourism visas and had our passports stamped as entering the country. The handsome fellow with his traditional
Omani headdress (I like these much more than the UAE ones) meticulously filled
in one line for each of us (Tinus included) in a very large book, more or less
starting at the one end of the table, writing …. writing …. writing …. writing
all the way to the other end of the table.
He then took our passports again, stamped them out, and did a new line
for each of us writing …. writing …. writing …. writing …. We got back into the
car and returned to the UAE border post where we had our passports stamped back
into the UAE, now on residential visas.
On the way back to Dubai we stopped the green bubble somewhere in the
red part of the desert and four happy UAE residents watched the sunset pour
molten gold over the endless dunes.
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| Pots at a roadside shop from the days when missionaries were still on the menu |
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| Buyer's market - if you're willing to haggle |
