happy holidays

merry boxing day:

so. must be short. havent been on in a while as a cable feeding oman with the internet was severed leaving us with frustrated attempts since the tenth or so of this month. things are somewhat back to normal now and thats great.

the holidays have not been too unlike those weve celebrated in other countries: we found tree in the back lot - its not your average pine tree, but it does have something, we had a delicious and huge turkey dinner on christmas day, we sang songs, watched all the christmas movie classics, listened to the rat pack, met up with three camels behind our flat, gave good presents. you know...typical stuff. 

oh. wait. the camels...well on christmas eve there were these three camels hanging around our back yard. it was great. the way camels move is really wonderful - power, grace, and awkward at the same time. the arabian mountains at dusk, men walking around in dishdashas (robes i guess), the north star, and the general feel of the moment felt more genuine a nativity scene than any ive seen before. sundi said she felt like she was on the set of a play ... it was great.

so. that gives you some idea. we ate so much on christmas day that were both a little worse for wear today. but well get by...

love to you all and i promise to write again soon with a bit of catch up on our travels and the like.

happy holidays from nizwa,

us

Wadi Bani Awf

an nyoung:

after driving through all those crazy roads we threw down our tent in a place called "Wadi Bani Awf." Wadi basically translates to river bed in English and they are all over the place in Oman. Usually they are dry like the one we camped in, but sometimes they can flood and cause all types of problems. Luckily, our spot was slightly elevated so we had no worries. We were worried about the rain, but it just passed by.

I. - Here's our camping spot in Wadi Bani Awf. It was a perfect spot right in the canyon, quite quiet, and with lots of wood for a decent campfire.
II. After cleaning up and all that we headed to one of Oman's great forts: Rustaq. This is from inside the fort's foyer.
III. - Sun and I outside Rustaq Fort.
IV. - Me in front of the great view from Rustaq Fort.
V. Close to Rustaq was an intense hot springs. Here, Gus and I dip our feet. The water was so hot that it somewhat scolded our feet.

Rustaq ...

ma kore?

This week is Eid. We have nine days off. Originally we thought of going to a different country, but didn’t get tickets on time. It actually works out well because we just got our Jeep and want to test it out a bit. Which we did in spades on Friday.

Sundi, Gus and I headed to a town named Rustaq, via a precarious 4 X 4 only road. Here is a short visual presentation of what we saw …

I. - We run out of "road" and prepare for what is next...
II. - What is next. In the far distance you can see the road we will follow and eventually find...
III. This. This is part of "Snake Gorge." You can walk through and continue down through a couple of canyons. Without much water the pools become kind of stagnant making going into them not high on the priority list. Also, as we all know, weird stuff lives in stagnant water and we dont want any of that.

IV. Sundi and Gus heading back to the Jeep with Sundi pointing out how we may be able to get into Snake Gorge without going into the weird water.
V. Way further down the road we saw this. Not sure of the name of the town, but I definitely want to go back already.