Joe's World Backpacking Trip Stories and pics from my travels.

I left Colleen's place at around 0830ish on the 19th.  My first stop was Bid Bid, a town 100 Ks north of Ibra.  I managed to hitch there with only one guy.  From Bid Bid, it was small villages. I hopped in and out of various transports, all hitched to get to Nizwa.  Because of the fact that these villages are all on the outskirts of civilization, it was about noon by the time I reached Nizwa.  Past Nizwa is a flat expanse of desert approximately 1000 Kilometers in length.  Only little villages with a gas station every 400 Ks or so.  So I started walking down the road into the desert.  I was expecting to hitch with an Omani truck driver, but I was fortunate enough that an elderly English (well, Welsh) couple stopped and picked me up.  They were a very nice couple, and had some travel experience behind them, they told me about South America in the 70s, and Turkey in the 60s.  They were an interesting couple.  It was nice to ride with people who had some stories, it was about 9 more hours of driving before we reached Salalah, and there was nothing to see the whole way, except the occasional sand dune or camel.  So, I made it all the way down Oman into Salalah in one day, and I didn't have to pay for any transport.  I've been pretty lucky so far.  A couple days in Salalah, maybe on the beach, and then I'm off to Yemen.