Omani Road Trip

Day 1: Arrival in Muscat, Onward to Nakhal

: Muscat, capital of Oman and home to about 1.5 million

: Same city, different ‘hood

: I love observing western brand names written in Arabic

: Your pizza sucks

: So does yours

: Nakhal Fort, about an hour outside of Muscat

: Chicken Biryani, my go-to meal in Oman made hot and fresh by immigrants from either India, Pakistan or Bangladesh

: 1 Omani Rial = approximately $2.60USD. The three bills in the column on the far left are baisa. 1000 baisa = 1 rial

: I am craving foodstuff. I desire the ingestion of foodstuff. Bring me to your foodstuff.

Day 2: Highway 13 to Jebel Shams via Wadi Bani Awf

: This is the vehicle I rented for my seven days in Oman. It also served as my lodging. Here is where I slept on my first night in the country, somewhere along Highway 13 just outside of the Al Hajar mountain range which I planned on entering the following morning. Since this was still a relatively populated area not too far outside the capital, as you can see, I ended up sleeping pretty close to people’s homes. That said, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who may have been up at 5:30 and happened to look out their window to see me squatting down with my asshole wide open when I dropped a deuce where their children possibly play

: My bedroom

: Entering the mountains

: Great road. Well-engineered. Smooth as fuckkkkkkk

: Where Fred Flintstone would sneak away to cheat on Wilma with some hot prehistoric poontang

: Where the blacktop ended

: All throughout this remote location, a team of white jeeps would drive around picking up children and dropping them off at school. No big yellow buses ’round these parts

: This is where the road started getting a little bit risky. I had little to no experience driving on unpaved roads and the same goes for driving in the mountains.

: Higher and higher

: View out the driver side window

: Pulled over to let this man get past

: To clue you in on the size of these mountains, that silver speck on the road on the far left side of the photo is a car

: Nice view of that gorge

: One last look back before the road wraps around another mountainside

: Soccer field

: Cruisin’

: The long and winding road

: An overhead look down on Balad Sayt Village

: Balad Sayt Village up close

: To gauge the ascent that takes place in the next few photos, pay attention to how this big black rock formation on the right here gets smaller and smaller

: Look, it’s shrinking! See, I told you!

: Even smaller

: This is what the road looked like in this area

: Can you still see it?

: Higher than a mafucker. View to my left from the top

: View to the right

: Great Wall motors has infiltrated the Omani market

: Alien-ass landscape en route to Jebel Shams

: Viewpoint overlooking Wadi Nakhr, the Grand Canyon of Oman

Day 3: Hiking Wadi Nakhr, Starting the 700-mile Drive Down to Salalah

: In accordance with my plans to hike the Wadi Nakhr “balcony walk” the following morning, I slept alongside the viewpoint seen in the photo previous. This is what I awoke to

: Good morning Oman

: Still enjoying the view from the top as I wait for a little more light to fill up the canyon before I go hiking down into it

: Near the entrance to the path that leads down into Wadi Nakhr

: Homes along the edge of the canyon

: Do people live here? Or just goats?

: The balcony walk begins

: Cabras de cañón

: Up at the top of the canyon on the left side is where the viewpoint is

: All the way at the end of the balcony walk is this little abandoned stone town where people used to live. Seems like a super inconvenient place to call “home”.

: Terraces of yore precariously teetering over the precipice

: The view out over the canyon from the village

: Taking the same path back out

: A yellow, white and red flag painted on the rock on the right to mark the trail. In all fairness, it’d be pretty hard to get lost here. You’re either on the trail, or you’ve fallen off it and you’re busted and bleeding at the bottom of the canyon

: “Fuck me in the goat ass!”

: Enjoy

: Making my way out of the Al Hajar mountains and beginning the trek to Salalah

: Funky-ass Willy Wonka, Prince wannabe lookin-ass purple mountain terrain

: So strange

: Water tankers like these can be seen all over the parched nation of Oman making freshwater deliveries

: Passion is a strong word. I can’t help but imagine some Arab guy sticking his boner in some cone half-filled with soft serve ice cream

: House in the village of Misfat al Abreyeen

: Same village, different crib

: I was in this town called Nizwa sitting in my car eating a bag of mozzarella cheese outside of the supermarket from where I’d just bought it when this fellow came and went galloping past

: Somewhere on the outskirts of Nizwa had been a bunch of folks selling fruit out the back of their pickups

: I didn’t like this guy. He was a dick. Asked to look at my camera then ripped it out of my hands, kept touching the lens with his grubby fingers and wouldn’t give it back. I learned my lesson. Never let anyone “see” your camera. EVER!

: This dude was more chill

: Genius

: Genius-er

Day 4: Through the Desert to Duqm, Coastal Route to Salalah

: Compared to the mountains from the two days previous, the road from Duqm to Nizwa proved to be a shit-boring ride

: Somewhere along the way in the middle of the desert, I saw this camel caravan and pulled off the road to go drive alongside ’em

: “Racing! Racing!” one man shouted at me, which I interpreted as, “These are racing camels,” not, “Hey, lets go, us on our camels versus you in that SUV. Let’s race.”

: Texting while jockeying is the cause behind 84% of camel related fatalities

: Are any of you guys related to Joe Camel?

: Nothing to look at but camels all day long

: And this dead truck

: To make the time pass more quickly…

: …I decided to see if I could masturbate to completion while maintaining a steady pace over the 100kmph speed limit. It proved to be a pretty entertaining ten minutes that culminated in a steering wheel dripping with spunk. Just kidding, future renters of that car! In reality, I finished into a plastic grocery bag that I crumpled up and threw on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

: In the port town of Duqm, they had BFC…

: …and they had DFC, but I didn’t see any KFC. But that’s okay though, because I wasn’t really looking. Instead…

: …I just opted to eat at Restaurant.

: How’d you like to live in this creepy compound near an oil refinery in bumblefuck where every house is the exact fucking same? Isn’t there a Stephen King book about this shit?

: Gave me the chills just driving past it

: “Mommy, did he go to goat heaven?”

: This one town I passed through, I can’t remember the name – and this is the only place I saw this in Oman – had all these billboard photos of gruesome car wrecks, showing dead bodies strewn all over the pavement.

: I realize they’re trying to emotionally manipulate you into driving more safely, but for me it had the opposite effect. I almost crashed cuz I was so busy gawking at these images of horrific wrecks.

: Mosque in the making with scaffolding that looks like the pins on Hellraiser’s face

: Ooh Zac, get out of my dreams and into my car

: Do people who work here call themselves “snowmen”?

: Here’s what I’d been waiting for. Here’s why I decided to take the long drive down to Salalah. It’s not Salalah itself that was of any interest to me, but the fifty or so mile stretch of coastal mountain road overlooking the Arabian Sea that leads into it. Fuck yes!

Day 5: Coasting into Salalah

: My favorite camping spot of the whole trip. Endless nothingness in all directions. Never had I seen so many stars above me in all my life. I was walking around the desert naked and ended up jacking off while looking up into the cosmos to consummate my oneness with the universe. And then a scorpion crawled up my ass and I died. And I was reborn. And then I lived happily ever after. The end.

: Sweet!

: Thought I saw Road Runner chasin’ Wile E. Coyote around this shit

: The sea minus the old man

: Breakfast clockwise: Roti, omelette, veg curry and lentils. Topped by hot sauce and washed down by mango juice.

: Uh-huh

: Wonder how much dynamite they used carving out this road. And I wonder what they did with all the chunks they blew out of the mountain. Where’d they put it all?

: Nice little cove action here

: Another impressive canyon that, in case you were wondering…

: …Guido has been to.

: Oasis minus the Gallaghers

: I went down and checked out the oasis hoping to take a quick dip but ultimately said “fuck it” in regard to the swim and just got back in the car

: That big “V” up there on the rock face is from where the road descends. You can see it swooping down to the left. And right next to me on the left is the guardrail. The rest of the ride to Salalah was at sea level or barely above.

: How much they payin’ this guy?

: Camel party on the beach

: Camels out the ass on this stretch. Drivers in Oman slow their roll and put their flashers on in the presence of camels

: Camels pose such a threat to drivers because their bodies are so high up off the ground. Unlike hitting a deer which will most likely bounce off your fender, get tangled in your grill and/or be run over by your car while everyone inside the vehicle remains unharmed, if a driver were to hit a camel, the front of the car will take out the camel’s legs just before all of the torso comes right through the windshield, decapitating you and whoever you got in the passenger seat

: After eating lunch in Salalah, I started heading back along the same road on which I came in. Here I am at sea level.

: Ascending

: Way up there

: As the sun sets…

: …and night falls, searching for a place to camp

Day 6: The Start of a Long Drive Back to Muscat

: During my week in Oman, I picked up four hitchhikers on the side of the road – one from Oman, two from Bangladesh and one from Pakistan. The Omani and the two Bangladeshi guys had been either going to or coming from work and were reasonably friendly and grateful for the ride. The Pakistani guy, however, was a different story. He was in his mid-twenties, was wearing a gritty, grubby-ass shalwar kameez and, as I soon found out, had neither been going to nor coming from work because he was unemployed. The night before I picked this guy up, all my belongings had gotten wet from condensation as I slept with the windows down near the sea. Of all my shit that had gotten wet, I was most concerned about drying out my wallet and my camera and my bag of electronic goodies which I’d had sitting in the sun on the passenger seat when I pulled over to pick this guy up. After pulling over but before letting the guy in the car, I hastily threw all these things back into my Jansport bag (which also happens to be where I keep the knife pictured here) and tossed ’em in the backseat. He’d been watching me through the window as I did this. I unlocked the door and let him in and I was struck in the face by his horrendous “I haven’t showered in weeks” B.O. and I immediately regretted my decision to give this guy a lift. After offering a begrudging hello, I again started driving. A couple minutes in, he pulled out his wallet, opened it up, showed me its pathetic emptiness and said, “No money.” “That’s okay,” I replied, “you don’t have to give me any money for the ride,” thinking that he thought I’d want a couple bucks for the favor I was doing him. “No, no, no,” he corrected me, “you give ME money.” I was caught by surprise. “Uh yeah, no…You see, I’m giving you a ride. So…yeah. That’s what you’re getting from me. Not money. A free ride.” He remains quiet for a minute before again asking me for money. I say no. He insists. I again tell him no and continue driving. Out the corner of my eye I can see him eyeing the backpack he’d watched me throw all my valuables into. He breaks the tense silence by telling me to give him the money from my bag. I say no and tell him that if he asks me again, the ride is over. He gets pushy and I’ve had enough. I pull over and tell him to get out. He has no intention of doing so without money. I think for a second and decide that maybe if I give him a little bit of money, he’ll go peacefully and I could continue driving with the windows down to air out his rancid B.O. stench that has taken over my rental car. I reach into my pocket and pull out 500 baisa which is something like a dollar and thirty cents and I hand it to him. “Bye!” I said. “You can go now.” He just sits there and says, “You give me money from bag,” while nodding towards the backseat. “No,” I repeated. “Yes,” he retorted, “you give to me.” “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll give you all the money from my bag.” And I reached into the backseat, grabbed my Jansport and set it on my lap. I unzipped it, I put my hand in, I pulled out my knife, opened it up, put it in my right hand, reached over and pressed the tip somewhere between his sternum and his Adam’s apple. With a big psychotic smile, I told him, “Get out of the car or I’m gonna fucking kill you.” Without looking away from me, he fumbled for the door handle, opened it up and slid out the car. “That’s good,” I said. “Now shut the fuckin’ door.” He did and I drove away as he silently stood and stared at the back of the SUV ever shrinking in the distance.

: U-turn signals?

: Sound too healthy to be good

: Fishing village

: A nicer, albeit cookie-cutter and boring, community a bit down the road from the fishing village in the photo previous

: Entering sand dune territory

: Look at that pen(is)manship

: I got pretty excited when I saw all these tire tracks leading into the desert. It made me wanna get off the road and do some dune bashing of my own. So…

: …I decided to try it. I wanted to see how my car would handle out in the sand. But as soon as I started driving in the sand, I could feel that I was getting terrible traction and got nervous and turned around and tried getting back to the road. But…

: …I couldn’t make it.

: As I stood there like a jackass on the side of the road with my rental car halfway buried in the sand, two Omani dudes pulled over without my flagging them down and immediately got to work digging me out of my predicament.

: I pumped the gas while they gave me a tug job and before ya know it, I was back on the road. Thanks guys!

Day 7: Back to Muscat via Sur & Wadi Shab

: Alright, so, this photo illustrates how most convenient stores and small cafes work in Oman. Omani people pull up in front of these places in their cars and lay on the horn until one of the workers from the shops (always a dude from either Bangladesh, Pakistan or India, specifically the Kerala region) comes running out to take their order. Rarely did I see Omani people actually get out of their cars to go into one of these places.

: Grease me up woman!

: A rendering of Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said, Sultan of Oman

: As I was driving through Sur, I saw that mini castle-looking thing on top of that hill and pulled over to check it out

: View from the base of the hill leading up to the aforementioned mini castle looking thing

: I’m comin’ for ya!

: View from the ascent

: Almost there

: View out the door

: Sultan sketch inside the castle thing

: I’m no art expert so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here but I’ll take a stab at it anyway. To me, this looks like the depiction of one man (the guy who is standing upright) using his finger to try and plug up the asshole of another man (the guy on his knees, facing away from the standing man) as he’s beginning to blast diarrhea all over the place.

: Inside the castle thing was a ladder to climb up to the top. From there, this is a view of Sur to the right

: And here’s to my left

: And here it is all together

: Yo bro, I’m so gonna steal that sign and hang it in my gym, bro

: Eat fresh, bitches

: The town of Tiwi, located about 90 miles outside of Muscat

: Same town, different view

: Just outside of Tiwi off the coastal road between Muscat and Sur is a popular tourist attraction known as Wadi Shab. On the bottom left of the bridge down in the water are a bunch of boats

: After parking your car, you pay a boat guy a couple bucks to take you on a three minute ride across this stretch of water

: On the right down by those palm trees is where the boat bros take you and drop you off

: Then after that, you walk for an hour or so through this valley until…

: …you reach these crystal clear pools of water that you can swim in.

: So fresh, so clean

: Overhead view. Those dots in the water are people swimming

: And once you’re in these pools, if you keep swimming until the end, you’ll reach these rocks that people are climbing up and jumping from. And you’ll see that crack there in the rock which you can swim through.

: And you can swim through this narrow passage between those rocks in the photo previous and…

: …reach this cave. It’s pretty hard to see, but on that mini waterfall straight ahead, there’s a rope dangling which a guy is using for support as he climbs, trying to get where that other guy is crouching on the top left of the photo

: View of the cave from where the guys are sitting on the right-hand side of the photo previous

: MASSIVE belly flop

: Back in Muscat – having all the sand and jizz cleaned out and off my car before taking it to the airport and returning it