Wadi Ash Shab & Tiwi

Day 3 and 4.
A not-for-the-faint-hearted last few hours of day 3, and a lesson in reading the guidebook for meaning!
When they say it's "tricky driving on narrow roads," it translates to - have your will up-to-date 🫣
Probably to most terrified I've even been - that's describing the "unbelievably steep roads / donkey track" down to the wadi.
Nathan's negotiating of hair pin bends, boulders, and exceptionally steep angles was amazing 👏🏻
Another roaring fire.. and a 3 whiskey night, our duty-free was never going to last all of Oman!
The morning greeted us with traditional goat herders calls to their flock echoing through the wadi canyon, and minutes later dozens of goats passing by us, young men riding their donkeys going to Wadi Tiwi for a wash, and a Landcruiser full of children and their dad's who loved our cherry tomatoes !
We made it to Wadi Tiwi, which looked beautiful from above, with palm fringed pools way below our vantage point.
We hadn't anticipated the amount of time needed to negotiate climbing the enormous boulders to get down to the wadi, and still get back up the road-from-hell and on our way, in daylight, to our next as yet unknown home for night 4.
Making our way off the road-from-hell 😅, we drove through a traditional village that honestly looked like it was from a previous century.
With a camel in a walled yard, goats roaming, tuniced men sitting on the steps of the mosque we were waved over and invited for coffee.
Quickly covering my head and Nathan pulling on long pants, we were poured fragrant coffee, possibly cardamom, into tiny tumblers, and dried dates appeared from somewhere.
We had individual packets of biscuits like you'd put in a school lunch box, just in case we came across any children.
These all disappeared in seconds... no, take one and leave some from the next child, but the older children reprimanded those who had multiples!
We were surrounded by kids ranging from 3 to probably 15 years old.
We managed to chat through sign language and the older girls' basic English.
They were curious about my age - it took a long time to count out 54 on my fingers and also how many babies I had had!
No photos were taken as it is culturally unacceptable to photgraph women and children in rural Oman, but our memories will last forever.
The girls and the sprinkles of sparkles on their head coverings with their rural clothing, bare footed boys and their huge smiles, hijabed women peering out at us from behind their walled compounds, and the coloured turban-like head scarfs and long beards of the older men.
Nathan offered a koha for the coffee, but this was proudly declined.
Our travels today also included exploring the incredible Jaylah Beehive Tombs- photos and description attached 😀.
Here, we met an inspiring Belguim couple in their 70's exploring the Middle East and all the Stans in their 4WD Mercedes camper.. with Nespresso machine !
More coffee, this time with biscoff, was had with the Tombs as our backdrop.
And we saw our first pair of wild camels, a mother and her baby, as the sun was setting.
It was a great day to be alive 🫶Read more