After a beautiful weak cycling the east coast it was time for me to leave the coast and head into the desert and mountains of Oman.

The day before had been a forced rest day caused by a sand storm that had blown through the area.  The winds had died down a little overnight but were still very strong.  That day though, the wind had swung around and would be a tail wind which pushed me along.

For the first part of the day the road I was following was flat and arrow straight. With a strong tailwind I was rolling along at over 30kmph.

There were no villages along this road just the odd shack in the desert

Water, which you would have thought may have been a problem, was still freely available as ‘water stations’, dispensing ice cold water, had been built by the roadside

I was passing signs for camels, but after nearly two weeks in Oman I still hadn’t seen one in real life

There are two roads that you can take south from Ras al Hadd and I decided to stick to the one that followed the coastline for 50km as once I turned inland that would be the last time that I would see the sea in Oman.

Most of this stretch of the coastline was deserted and I had it pretty much to myself.  The views as I cycled that morning were stunning. 

The only traffic that passed me was the odd truck.

Around lunchtime I came across the town Al Khabbah and decided that if there was a restaurant I would stop for something to eat

It was only a quick stop for food as for the next two days I would be in eat, cycle, sleep mode as I wanted to get to town of Bidiyah, from where the huge Wahiba Sand Dunes were easily accessible, before the weekend.

The weekend in Oman is Friday and Saturday which means that from Thursday night the dunes would be full of weekend warriors hooning about in their 4WD’s.  My plan was to get to the dunes on Wednesday evening and camp in the desert before backtracking 20km and climbing into the mountains to visit Wadi Bani Khalid. 

An hour after setting off again I came to the village of As Suwaih. This marked my turning off point for the mountains and would be the last time that I would see the sea in Oman. From here, I would be heading into the desert and mountain region as I took the ‘inland’ road west towards the border the United Arab Emirates.

The village of As Suwaih was eerily empty and it looked like the desert was trying to reclaim the houses.

Even the road was in danger of being reclaimed by the dunes

Once I turned west and headed into the interior of the country I didn’t have to pedal far before I was surrounded by sand on on all sides

I had been cycling through Oman for nearly two weeks, and surprisingly, I still hadn’t seen a camel.  Once I was away from the coast and into the sand though I soon cycled past a fair few that were just aimlessly strolling down the road.

Here is a short video to show you how beautiful they are:

Now that I had turned west the strong tailwind that had been pushing me along all morning was now more of a headwind and was doing its best to stop me in my tracks.  I just hoped that once I got nearer to the mountains that they would provide a bit of cover from the wind.

The next few hours were a hard slog in the stifling temperatures and as I was in sleep, eat, cycle mode I put my head down and got on with it.

As night fell I arrived at the town of Al Kamil and decided to stop there for the night.  That day I had covered more than 130km and as a ‘reward’ I went in search of a hotel for the night.  My luck was in as on the far side of the village was Qawafal Almamooth Hotel Apartments. 

When I asked how much it was to stay the receptionist said that it would be cheaper to book the hotel online and gave me the hotel’s wifi code to do so. Why they didn’t just reduce their ‘rack rate’ to match the internet price I have no idea.

After checking in I went for a cycle around town and although there wasn’t much to it there was a lovely blend of traditional and modern buildings.

If you ever cycle this way and need your bike repairing there are about 10 bike shops all in a row down by the livestock market.

My tour of town took all of 20 minutes and after stopping at a restaurant to pick up some Batata Vada for dinner (spicy potato balls) I cycled back to the hotel for an early night.

The next day I was up early as I wanted to get into the desert by early afternoon.  My destination was an area of desert called Wahiba Sands/Sharqiya Sands. 

Names of areas, villages and towns in Oman is something that can be very confusing when asking for directions. I have found that many of the villages that are marked on my map have different names to the actual local name, and even within the same town I will often signs calling it either a completely different name or a similar name but with a completely different spelling.  Just another quirk that makes Oman so special.

Wahiba Sands covers an area of 12,500 square kilometers of desert and to distinguish between different sections areas tend to be referred to based on the types of dunes found there.

The desert is divided into the high, or upper, Wahiba and low Wahiba. My destination that day was an ‘upper’ area which contained mega-ridge sand systems with dunes that measure rise to more than 100 meters in height.

The easiest access point into the upper dunes from where I had slept was through the town of Bidiyah (also known as Al Ghabbi) and as it lay 70km from Al Kamil it was going to be a relatively easy day on the bike.

As I set off the nice quiet road through the sand dunes that I had spent most of the day cycling on the day before was slowly being replaced by a 4 lane highway.

So, if you are planning on cycling in Oman you need to get your skates on if you want to ride here without being passed by trucks and 4WD’s doing 130kmph !!!

The other thing that makes me laugh each day is that Oman seems to have a thing about public toilets. In its drive to increase the number of tourists I think Oman has identified public toilets as a priority as I constantly pass signs telling me where the nearest one is.

Now with empty desert all around I’m not sure how many people would drive 14km off the main road and then 14km back again just to have a wee.  I know that I didn’t !!!

As I had set off early that morning lunchtime for me was around 11am and at the turning for Wadi Bani Khalid, where I would cycle back to the following day, there was a restaurant where I stopped to get something to eat.

As with just about every meal that I had eaten so far in Oman the offering was a fusion of Indian and Bengali cuisine washed down with Chai Karak (sweet masala tea)

The food in Oman was nearly as stunning as the scenery and lunch that day was potato and chickpea curry, daal, beans, salad and freshly baked roti bread, all for under 2GBP.

After lunch I still had another 20km to go to get to the town of Bidiyah and when I got there it was nearly 1pm. As it was nearly 40 degrees I decided that I would wait an hour or so before heading out into the sand.

With time to kill I decided that it was time for a haircut and shave, which wasn’t never hard to find as every second shop seemed to be a barbers.

I had now been on the road for 9 months and as I had time on my hands I asked one of the taxi drivers if there was a dentist in the town to get a clean and polish.  Instead of giving me directions he told me to follow him as he showed me the way.

When we got to the dentist he just shook my hand before driving back to the taxi rank where I had found him.

My dentist that day was a 75 year old Indian who had been living in Oman for 40 years.  After a quick checkup he gave me a clean bill of health.  Before leaving I asked him where was the best place to get into the sands and he said that there were two main places – either the villages of Shahiq or Hawiyah which were both on the edge of Bidiyah.

He recommended that I cycle to Shahiq and follow the road into the dunes from there, and that is what I did.

The village of Shahiq was slightly surreal as it was on the very edge of the huge dunes and it seemed that the sand would soon engulf the houses.

It was still so hot that even the goats were trying to find what little shade that they could to get out of the scorching sun.

The ‘life line’ for the village is a natural spring which provides an oasis where they can grow crops and dates

After a quick stop at the spring to fill up on water it was time to cycle out into the dunes

As I left the village I passed lots of camel pens that would soon be carrying the weekend tourists through the dunes. 

Camels have the weirdest feet 

I pushed on, literally pushing the bike for most of the time, for about 4 km before the sand got too deep for me to even push the bike and gave up and looked for somewhere to camp.  Now that I was a few kilometers into the dunes I could appreciate just how massive they were 

There are lots of desert camps that had been set up further into the sand where tourists could stay.  Apparently, the tents even have air conditioning but at 100 GBP per night they were out of my price range. Plus, for me, the whole point of camping in the desert was the solitude and the silence rather than having 40 neighbours racing around in their cars.

Even though it was Wednesday there were still a lot of cars heading out into the dunes and I decided that the safest place for me to camp out of reach of the 4WD’s would be on top of the highest dunes, where hopefully the soft sand made it impossible for vehicles to reach.

I left my bike next to an empty camel pen for the night and it was then time to hike up into the dunes to find a place to camp

After hiking uphill for 30 minutes I reached the top of the first line of dunes

To my south there was nothing but sand for over 1000km

I found a beautiful spot to camp in a valley between two dunes and set up my tent for the night

For as far as I could see there was nothing but sand

It was then time to get food on before it went dark

I moved my chair to the edge of the ridge line to eat dinner and watch the dunes change colour as the sun went down. 

A 4WD car driving along the dunes below where I was camped spotted me and made 4 runs to get up the dunes before eventually getting to me.  Out of the car piled 8 Omani’s who wanted a selfie with me.

 

Once they had their picture they jumped back in the car and sped off back down the dune further into the desert.

That night was a full moon and the stars were spectacular.  It was fairly cold at night and I slept in my sleeping bag.  In the night it must have been windy as when I woke there was about an inch of sand on the inside of my tent.  In hindsight, I should have put the flysheet on the tent as I was shaking sand out of my kit for the next week.

Here is a video to show you what a special place the dunes were:

After breakfast it was time to pack up my tent and when I was doing it I nearly put my hand on a scorpion that had decided that my tent made a great place to sleep. I’m not sure who got more of a fright but he was soon running across my tent at full speed, and hence the blurry shot below:

Once I had packed everything up it was time to carry my kit back to where I had left the bike the day before.


I found a different track to take back to the village of Shahiq and for the first time I was happy to be cycling on a corrugated road as this gave my back wheel traction and meant that I could ride most of the way back to the village.

Once there, I cycled into the palm plantation to get a shower as my night in the dunes had left a layer of sand in every orifice.

My shower consisted of my water bladder being hung from a tree

And me stripping off, soaping up and then standing under the nozzle to wash. 

If I plan ahead and leave the bladder out in the sun for an hour or so I can even have a piping hot shower !!!

After showering it was time to cycle out of Shahiq back to Bidiyah

It seems that there are many Indians living in Bidiyah and this was probably the first place in Oman that I had seen more bikes than cars.

After a quick stop for a banana shake at a coffee shop it was time to get on with cycling the 16km back down the road that I cycled yesterday to reach the turn for Wadi Bani Khalid.

Where it had taken me almost two weeks to see my first camel they were now everywhere and I must have passed 30 or 40 of them on the short cycle back to the turn off.

From the turn it was a 25km ride to reach the wadi

For the first time in Oman I would now be heading into the mountains and I knew that along this road there was a short but very steep section where I would climb nearly 500m over a few kilometres.

This section of road was steeper than anything that I had climbed in the Andes and was one hell of a grind up. 

Photos never show how steep a road really is (even the 22 percent gradients looked flat) so here is a short video to give you a better idea

I was just happy to get to the top without having to push the bike and once at the top it was time to descend down into the bottom of the valley to find the wadi.

The only previous wadi that I visited in Oman had been Wadi Shab.  There I had to first take a boat and then hike up the valley.  Here at Wadi Bani Khalid there is a 5km section where villages line the banks of the wadi and the upper wadi can be accessed by cars.

As it was Thursday night and the beginning of the weekend I decided to follow the wadi downstream from the main village and camp in the date plantations where I was hoped to find some peace and quiet.

All along the side of the road there were irrigation channels that carried the water to all parts of the valley. 

The ability to channel and move the water meant that every inch of the valley bottom was being used to grow crops and dates and with the cooler mountain air it was a wonderful place to cycle.

About a kilometer down this road a concrete walkway had been built to cross the wadi and this made an ideal bridge for me to push my bike across into the plantation.

Once on the other side I pushed my bike through the date trees and found a spot where they weren’t growing crops to pitch my tent.

It may seem strange that I had set up on the gravel under a mango tree but each date tree was set in its own small rectangle plot in which they were also growing crops.  As I didn’t want to flatten the crops it seemed like a sensible idea to camp on the stones. 

Plus, all through the plantation there was a maze of concrete irrigation channels feeding water to each individual date tree and it would be just my luck that they watered the plot that I had camped on.

As I was setting my tent up for the night the pole that had been getting progressively shorter snapped again.

I managed to repair it but every time it gets shorter there is more tension in the pole which means that at some point I think that it will snap in the middle and I won’t be able to repair it. Still, for now I had a tent to sleep in.

On the road where I had crossed the wadi there was a mosque so I walked back to fill my bladder with fresh water.

As I was camping downstream from villages I didn’t want to use the water from the wadi to drink but for a shower and to wash my clothes it was fine.

It was then time to go and cook dinner before getting an early night

Camping on the stones turned out to be a wise decision as when I was getting ready for bed I heard the sound of running water and all of the irrigation channels were filling with water.  When I went to find out what it was it seemed that this part of the plantation was being watered that night.

I found Sumon, who was from Bangladesh, in the middle of the trees and it was his job to spend the night watering each tree.

Here is a video to show you how beautiful where I camped was, and what Sumon did every night. (watch it to see what animal attacks me in the wadi !!!)

Like everywhere else that I had camped in Oman Sumon didn’t have an issue with me camping in the plantation and in the morning lots of the other Bangladeshi workers popped in to say hello. 

Well, not really to say hello as many of them spoke no English and would sit and watch me for a few minutes before getting back to work.

I had planned on spending a couple of nights camped at the Wadi and after my normal 6.30am breakfast at sunrise I broke camp and cycled back up the wadi towards the deep pools that I knew were located at the head of the valley.

To get there I had to cycle through the main village of Sayh al Hayl which is located along the banks of the wadi.

In the village there are lots of coffee shops and a couple of supermarkets so if cycling here don’t bother bringing lots of food up the steep hill as you can get everything you need once you get here.

Once through the village it was about a 4 km cycle to get to the deep pools along a road which followed the side of the date plantations.

The day before a motorcyclist had pulled alongside to see if I was okay and needed anything before heading up into the mountains.  He must have camped the night before by the main pools as I saw him coming down the road towards me so we pulled over for a chat.

His name was Ahmet and he was from Istanbul in Turkey.  He had ridden his motorbike overland through Turkey and Iran before taking a boat to Oman.  His original plan had been to continue overland towards Egypt but the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia had denied him an entry visa as he was Turkish. 

This meant that he could go no further as the only other country he could ride to was Yemen but as that country is only bordered by Oman and Saudi Arabia it was no use to him.

While we were sat talking about our respective journeys a young Omani guy pulled up in a car to see if we were okay.  We said we were and it turned out that the house that we had stopped in front of was his father’s so he invited us in for coffee.

The car driver was a man called Saif and he was the son of a sheik. He worked in Muscat and had driven home for the weekend.

The part of the house that we went to was the greeting hall where male guests would be welcomed.

Within a couple of minutes one of the staff brought a tray laden with dates, fruits, and cardamom coffee. 

It was a fantastic place to spend an hour or so chatting and was another example of the amazing hospitality that I have been shown throughout my time in Oman.

I needed to get on though as I wanted to get to the deep pools of the wadi before the main throng on people from Muscat arrived to spend Friday at the wadi (the wadi is only a couple of hours drive through the mountains from Muscat).

The pools are located in the upper part of the valley at the very end of the access road.

 From here I had a great view all the way back down the valley and could for the first time see just how many date trees there were.

Where I had camped the night before was just to the right of the main peak that you can see in the distance in the picture above.

At the end of the road there is a rocky path that you walk down to access the pools but the boulders were far too big for me to even push my bike over. Instead, I cycled my bike along one of the irrigation channels as far as the first pool and left it there for the day.

 

After a quick swim in the lower pools I hiked further up into the narrow pools which were pretty stunning with sheer cliff walls rising vertically for about 100m.


There is also a restaurant next to the pool that I left my bike so again if you camp here you can get food. (They only do set meals and at 4 OMR it is expensive)

I had originally planned to camp at the pools for the night but as it was Friday the pools got busier as the day wore on

I decided to ride back to where I had camped the night before as it had been a fantastic spot.

To get to the deep pools there is a very steep final descent that when leaving you need to cycle back up.  The hill is easily more than a 20% gradient but I took the first left, about 40m after the start of the climb, and although there is still a small climb you can wind your way through the houses and come out on the other side of the hill.

Back in Sayh al Hayl I answered another ‘mystery’ that I had wondered about since arriving in Oman. The vehicle of choice for locals in Oman is a Toyota pickup and everyday I am passed by pickups that have a large tank on the back.

In the village there was one parked by the side of the road selling from the back of the truck the contents of the tank.  It turned out that the tank was full of fish and once you chose which one you wanted the vendor would gut and filet the fish for you.

When I cycled back to the spot to get set up for the night the scene before me as I crossed the wadi could only be described as stunning.

Katherine, who is a Warmshowers host in Ibri that I had been in touch with, had told me that there was a beautiful walk further downstream from where I had camped into a canyon.  I would have loved to spend the following day hiking but I was fast running out of time on my visa.

As there was no road west through the mountains from here in the morning I would have to head back down the mountain to continue my cycle towards The United Arab Emirates. On the way to the border I would face my biggest cycling challenge yet in Oman – to climb nearly 2000m to the top of Oman’s very own Grand Canyon.

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The Desert and Mountains of Oman
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