The Oman Road Trip adventure began with some of the adventurers facing visa issues. Those were quickly resolved at the border. Which we had to get to as soon as possible because everyone was pretty worried about the crowds. There were no crowds.

Snake Canyon

Snake Canyon drive is not for cars with weak brakes or with a lack of 4×4 abilities. There are lots of steep climbs, twisty turns and shaky passes. The place is beautiful, and I suppose full of snakes on the bottoms of the wadis (judging by its name). Thankfully we haven’t met any.

Through dusty passages, we got to a small canyon for a quick break and to take some photos.

Actually with the dust that we kicked on the way, the place got to look even more cinematic.

After an hour more driving down, we found a peaceful (or so we thought) place to rest for the night. We got to set up the camp and prepare the dinner.

Little did we know that we would be woken up at 5 am. By a bloody digger that we failed to spot in the dusky evening. First light of day was announced by singing of myriad of birds. A few minutes later, when the digger started, all the birds shut up. Oh well, it is hard to get away from the civilization, no matter how hard you try these days.

Nevertheless, the place looked pretty idyllic. But also full of mosquitos during the darker hours.

We packed up and departed on the continuation of our Oman Road Trip from the bottom of the canyon up to discover a football field at the height of ±2000 meters.

This drive provides the kind of views that are impossible to capture in any way through imagery, because of the scale and the vastness. Even if you do take pictures, they don’t look as impressive as it feels standing there on the edges of these not very wide roads.

Next stop was again at the bottom of the canyon to check out some natural pools, where we found a few tourists taking a swim. The place was very peaceful, but I recommend sturdy and waterproof shoes to go explore those.

Again, there were a bunch of people on the way in Nissan Sunnies and whatnot, who definitely felt too ambitious about their cars abilities to climb hills…

Finally, we got out on the paved road and directed our tires towards the next Oman Road Trip destination.

Bronze Age Heritage Site of Al-Ayn.

Once again, to get to this place you have to be very sure in your car’s integrity, because the place is quite remote. We drove on a riverbed, some pretty sketchy gravel road… got offered a goat for dinner by a passing-by Omani, but once you make it to the location – the views are quite something else.

This time, the sleep was peaceful apart from the 6 am visit from the donkey… The place is quite an open area, so it can get windy (so windy, that the wind blows away the peperronis off your camping pizza). Perfect place for some astrophotography.

If you are wondering what is the purpose of those towers, well, the archeologists are not sure themselves, but they look quite epic against the blue skies.

In the morning, I took a nice camping shower, the guys tried to do some car maintenance. Some successfully, others less so. We flew the drone around and drove out of the place through some unbelievable villages, full of goats and concrete fences. The end of this part of the driving was some crazy road with 15 twists of 30 degrees decline. Nice way to test if your breaks are still working.

Afterwards, I had to head to the Muscat airport to catch a flight to reunite with my cat who was left alone for too long. The rest of the crew made their way to the beach and enjoyed some tanning for two days.

If you have any questions, let me know and read the first part of the Omani adventures here.

Anna