Exploring Jebel Hatt
After a year and a half living in Oman, I finally went camping… Well, I went glamping. We borrowed a friend’s 4X4 and headed up the mountain to Jebel Hatt. We stayed in the most gorgeous little white tepee which was surrounded by goats and home to the most stunning sunset.
It was most certainly glamping and not camping as I blagged one of the two actual beds, whereas the rest of our group had to sleep on blow up beds. The set up was ideal; it was stocked up with fire wood, BBQ coal, firelighters, and even herbs and spices to make our BBQ pop.
For some strange reason myself and my friend Leanne were put in charge of the BBQ, no word of a lie it took over an hour and a whole bottle of fire lighter to get those coals going.
Once we had finally cooked our skewers on the BBQ it was time for s’mores. Yes, I have roasted marshmallows before but normally I have just stuck them in between chocolate digestives. However, my friend Nicole showed us the true American way of using graham crackers, Hershey’s chocolate and the cremated marshmallow, delicious!
After an evening around the campfire where all the girls were wearing jumpers saying it was cold [it’s Oman of course it wasn’t, jokers] we went to bed in our cute little tepee.
The next day we got up early to watch the sunrise… Turns out we couldn’t actually see the sunrise as it was the other side of the mountain, fail. Nevertheless, we cooked breakfast and packed up ready for the day.
We got in the cars and set off to explore Wadi Nakhar. I didn’t realise how slowly we had packed up from camp because when we arrived at the wadi it was already midday, yes meaning midday sun, yes meaning it was BOILING! The wadi itself is really well signed with ladders and handle bars to climb up to some of the trickier parts of the wadi. The main problem wasn’t the height of some parts of the wadi but actually the lower parts where you need to scramble over rocks meaning you had to touch them. Sounds dramatic but three of us walked away with burnt palms from touching the hot rocks, making the hike much harder.
After a very sweaty and hot hike we stopped off at a smoothie shop and headed back to Muscat. My friend Leanne is currently fostering a dog called Jamil and had to go pick him up from the dog sitter on our way home before the curfew hit. Jamil was so excited to be reunited with her, however not even two minutes into the journey he decided to do his business on the back seat… As in both!!! The stench was vile, we pulled over to clean up the mess, however we could not find a bin… Yes, meaning we had to drive from Mawaleh to Qurm with Jamil’s poo in a bag!!! I have never been so grateful to be wearing a face mask in all my life.
A very shattered Rachel left her bags at the front door and headed straight to the shower to get the smell of dog poo off. Not quite the ending to my glamping trip that I expected, but overall I had a great time. I am definitely keen to actually camp properly now, I just won’t be car sharing with a dog owner again!