A Selection of Ramblings from Oman

So, after a nerve racking hour on a leaky converted landing craft we arrived in Dibba, the only real concentration of people on Masirah Island. I thanked the old Austrian couple for giving me a lift up until this point, lugged on my backpack, and headed to what seemed like a group of 'maQaha' ,or small Indian tea shop, the sort of which that can be found even in the smallest settlements in the most remote region of Oman. After taking a spiced krak tea I contemplated my next move but to no avail as a Bedu driving by in one of the diffuse Toyota pick ups, seeing me sitting down by my self suddenly cut across the road, rolled down the window and asked what was wrong and if I was lost. I told him I was going to visit the Wadi above the town to sleep in and asked if it was okay to do so; "of course not, you cannot camp alone, I will camp with you!" and no amount of persuasion could deviate him from his original offer. So this is how I spent my first night on Masirah, wedged between two lightly inclined volcanic rock valley sides, under the plethora of stars, with the slow burn and crack of a stick fire in one corner and contemplation between two people of vastly different worlds, one of noise and bodies and buildings in plenty, the other of mountains and sea and sand.
The next day we parted ways and I continued south, aiming to hitch 100 km to the southern most point of the island, through empty beaches and jarred mountains punctuated only irregularly by a spring around which a controlled ecosystem of date palms and goats would huddle. A kind old fisherman gave me a lift and even showed my the wreck of what must have been one of the old sort of Arab Dhow that brought the numerous commodities of the Swahili Coast up to Oman and then transported dates and frankincense of the biblical stories to the port cities of Eastern Africa. He left me on one of the most stunning beaches i have seen, where the white coral sand merged seamlessly into the black volcanic rock that dominates the spine of this long but narrow island, an effect only intensified by the rippling mirage caused by the intense Arabian sun. I decided that I could not stay as the heat was too much and i only had 2 liters of water left so i waited patiently, as you must in the Omani Outback, by the road side, waiting for a car to pass. After half an hour a rusted British 1970's army issued pickup stopped and asked where I was going; "south", I asked where he was going; "fishing, would you like to come?"