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| Entrance to Wadi Shab |
We parked on a gravel bed under a huge new concrete overpass bridge and packed our supplies for the day -water bottles for everyone plus two extra 4liter water jugs, apples, granola bars and our new favorite desert snack, dates and Nairn Scottish oatmeal cakes. We headed out on a dry riverbed, large white gravel stones underfoot, and I heard the stories about how very different it was since the cyclone in 2007. This
gravel bed had before been a wide grove of palm trees, with a sandy path winding through it. The storm came through with an amazing intensity, to move boulders this size!
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| Once a grove of date palms before the cyclone of '07 |
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| Hard to capture the enormity of these boulders |
We soon came to increasingly larger rocks, boulders strewn throughout and huge, craggy reddish cliffs, towering over us. Palm trees lined both sides and we started to climb - like the hundreds of goats we have seen here in Oman, winding our way up the wadi. Every so often, a path would emerge, but mostly it was scrambling. We came to the same beautiful green pools that we had seen at Wadi Bani Khalid, but this was a much wider, opener space. Remnants of ancient stone houses,high up in the cliffs.
Finally, we came to a very large pool, filling in most of the space between the canyon walls. We stowed our backpacks and jumped in. Cool, clean, wonderfully refreshing! Janeece and I swam ahead, but Jer called out that I couldn't go on any further. (?) He caught up and started video taping - we swam around a big corner and ahead was a cleft in the stone wall, actually just a crack, the water was very deep; enough that we had to tread. WE got close enough to see that the crack went deep in the wall and you could see through the very narrow cleft and see sunlight beyond. This water was so green it almost glowed and as I got closer, the crack, which they told me is called the keyhole, was only just wide enough to fit your head through,and for a distance of about three meters , treading water and holding onto the sides of the cleft as you moved through. Absolutely freaking scary but amazing! Definately not for the claustrophobic!
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| Opening to the cavern - that little bit of light is the pass-thru! |
We emerged into a huge partially open cavern, with sunlight streaming in, and beautiful bright green sections on the steep,very high walls and asmall waterfall streaming in. I was in awe! And Jer captured it all on a video!! We swam around, treading water, enjoying the amazement of the place. I was the only one who hadn't been there before, but it was a wonderful exciting reward for all of us after the hot tough scramble up.
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| Inside! |
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| Made it |
And then we had to swim back out through that tight little entrance - just as much of a thrill as going in!!
Swam back to our packs and had to hoof it back as we were late to get Jai back to Muscat for her flight back home to Calgary. Her and Jer went ahead to get the truck, with the intention of driving as far as they could up the dry wadi bed to meet us. We were well on our way when we saw Janeece jogging toward us - the tide had come in and we were going to have to take a boat across to where our truck was parked!! A helpful and slightly opportunistic Omani with a small fishing boat ferried us across and soon we were back on the road back.
What a day! What an adventure!! And, the great part is that yesterday, while Jim and Elaine had a day to themselves, Jer and I drove back and did it again!! And it was every bit as much fun. I will insert photos later.
In between, we had yet another wonderful experience, and that will be the subject of my next blog.
We are having a wonderful vacation, and we are entirely safe, despite what sensationalist things CNN is broadcasting..
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