oasis | A Broad Abroad

In this day and age, it’s difficult for a traveler to feel like he or she is really truly exploring anymore. With the reach of the Internet and the opening of borders around the world, it can feel as if everything has already been laid bare… which is why Oman is so special. The country has only been “open” for 40 years, and the sultan, while modernizing the country, has insisted that any new construction fit in with the old.

But there is old, and then there is ancient. While driving through the mostly arid country, every once in a while you will hit a wadi — a valley that hides an oasis. Most of the wadis are similar — there are fresh pools and a town nearby.

And then there is Birkat Al-Mawz. It’s a tiny little town with mud houses in the Wadi al-Muaydin, which lies on the edge of Jebel Akhdar. The town is a peek into what life was like more than 500 years ago. You can roam through the ruins and explore at your leisure. (Just be careful, the houses are literally falling down. Two years ago, a block of four came crashing down at the feet of a group of German tourists, sending one to the hospital.)

The houses are built on top of each other — from the living room of one house, you can see into the kitchen of another — with air ducts that acted like air conditioning and construction that reminds one of something out of Star Wars. Inside are painted wooden beams and empty windows where carved shutters used to be.

“Many of the old doors and shutters have been looted,” said Qais, my guide. “No one knew how valuable they were until they were gone.”

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The French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.”

Nowhere is this statement more apt than in Oman. The land of Sinbad the Sailor and the Queen of Sheba, Oman — with the exception of the coastline — is seemingly a never-ending desert. In the western part of the country is the Empty Quarter, with sand dunes that tower 30 stories high. The rest of the country is a rocky desert, covered in limestone and fossilized rock.

Heaven on Earth: The Hidden Oasis of the Arabian Desert

The dramatic landscape of Oman. (Photo: Kristina Cafarella)

To the untrained eye, it is a barren, lonely landscape that looks as if it would not — could not — support life. But then, just as the desert becomes monotonous and unforgiving, you climb to a mountaintop, look down, and see trees, greenery, and water.

The temperature was hovering at around 90 degrees while I was driving through the Sharqiyah region, 230 kilometers north of the capital city, Muscat. The car was air-conditioned, but when we got out to hike, my lungs felt as if they were full of sand, gravel, and dust.

I soon sat down to drink some water and rest for a minute, when my guide, Qais, said, “Look over your shoulder.” And there it was — the Wadi Bani Khalid, one of the most famous oases in Oman (wadi means valley and in the valleys are oasis).

For a hot second, I could imagine what the Bedouin felt like when they saw this oasis hundreds of years ago — riding by camel for days – hot, tired, and thirsty — and then finding a slice of heaven hidden on earth.

The dramatic landscape of Wadi Bani Khalid. (Photo: Kristina Cafarella)

The streams and pools of the Wadi Bani Khalid are surrounded by date palms and greenery. They were so clear that, from the position I sat in, at least a mile up, I could see through to the bottom of the pools.“Let’s go. Now,” I said.

“Absolutely,” Qais agreed. Five minutes later (by car), I was walking though a biblical scene. Because Oman used to be covered by ocean, the limestone boulders are etched with fossils. You have to watch your step, since it is slippery, and the holes in the rock are magically filled with water.

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Tag Archives: oasis

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Heaven on Earth: A Hidden Oasis in the Arabian Desert