More Aladdin’s Cave than Glastonbury pitch, it concealed comforts we never expected in the middle of nowhere: a rocket-sized air-con unit, a plasma TV and, amid the embroidered cushions where we could play at being Bedouin royalty, an armoire and treasure chest. Best of all, to complete the Dubai-in-the-desert luxe, there was a pummelling en-suite shower. This eyrie of ours stood on the edge of a craggy peninsula, a zip-open door revealing the headland ablaze at sunset. We were here to see a nesting site for endangered green turtles – a bold project in Omani tourism set up to educate local fishermen and protect the annual arrival of 30,000 of the sea creatures upon the surrounding beaches. The reptiles are a constant worry for the people of Ras Al Jinz; so much so, that no wandering on the beach is permitted any more after dark. As a result, the armoured, elegant females can pull themselves up the shore in peace to lay and cover their eggs with flipper shovels of sand. To that end, zealously controlled escorted torch-lit tours keep human interference to a minimum. Under the light of a crescent moon, Ras Al Jinz Beach turned the colour of silver. Stars splashed across the sky and my mum guided my eyes to a twinkling ‘W’ in the sky: Cassiopei. We followed the torchlight down to the beach. The sparse vegetation and dunes thinned out until all that was before us was a black shadow of sand and the thundering swells of the sea, somewhere in the dark. The wind blew. Soon, a monstrous 135kg turtle appeared, only her glimmering shell visible in the halo of light as she waddled up the beach to begin her ritual. In what seemed a heartbeat, half a dozen other turtles arrived, patrolling the surf as if on the lookout for trespassers, all to bury the next generation under the sand, away from the burning days. If it hadn’t been so dark, I know I’d have seen mum wide-eyed with wonder. Gradually, our odyssey unravelled along the coastline, the two of us transfixed by the hot flush of colours and shades. At Al Ashkharah, we swam off an extraordinary beach, reeling under the visual assault of blue on gold, then watched cowl-wrapped fishwives mending nets on the shoreline where Bronze Age tools and cairn burial sites from early Islamic settlements have been found. We laughed over an ice factory in the middle of the desert (for packing fish? Icing drinks? Cooling down camels? We couldn’t guess). We sipped syrupy cardamom coffee from roadside vendors. We lost count of how many hip-waggling camels we saw before entering the desert proper. The further we explored, the further we felt we were travelling back in time, back to when we were both younger. In these hours, we passed only a handful of other vehicles. In quieter moments, I could see my mum processing the desert world she had never seen before. The visions of Ibn Battuta, Wilfred Thesiger and Lawrence of Arabia. One afternoon, abruptly, the coastal road veered inland from the white sugar dunes of Al Khaluf, our farthest stop south, and we struck north on Route 32 into a landscape embedded with multi-layered dunes and barebranched acacia trees. Mum’s dream was to become reality. By midafternoon, our road was scrambling up and over itself into the great nowhere of the Wahiba Sands, in search of a desert camp at the end of an off-road track. We corkscrewed over a ridge into a landscape that became starker and more savage: barren, desert country, coloured-in with golden warmth and yellow fuzziness. Confronted with its epic scale, mum visibly glowed. Out of this nothingness came the Sama Al Wasil Desert Camp, looking like something a child would draw: peaked sandbanks, skirted by a clutter of pretty Bedouin tents and huts around a large courtyard. The promise of tussocky dunes to climb, fire-pit lamb barbecues to savour, zero light pollution for perfect stargazing and only two camels (Sohan and Shahin) to share it with was both evocative and acutely Arabian. Sunrise, on our final morning, found us on camels traversing a sweeping dune heading deeper into the Rub’ al Khali. We had risen in the dark to avoid the heat of the day and followed our white-robed Bedouin guide, Amur, for a couple of hours. The higher we climbed, the more I could sense my mum’s blissful contentment. Sand whipped our legs and stubborn waves of grain crowded us from all sides. Sunlight struck our faces with such force that my mum’s billowy keffiyeh momentarily recast her as a desert explorer, a vision enhanced by the sweat and sand in my eyes. This was it, her One Thousand and One Nights moment – astride a camel, hair mussed-up, conquering magical, storybook dunes. It was wonderful, windswept desert perfection. And a tribute, even if I say so myself, to my being a pretty good son. Inspired to travel? To book a trip, call 800 DNATA or visit dnatatravel.com Credit: Stephen Doig / The Telegraph / The Interview People 54 worldtravellermagazine.com
OMAN These pages, left to right: Camels drinking in Wadi Darbat river; a green turtle crawling back to the sea after having laid eggs on the Ras Al-Jinz beach ‘ IN WHAT SEEMED A HEARTBEAT, HALF A DOZEN OTHER TURTLES ARRIVED, PATROLLING THE SURF AS IF ON THE LOOKOUT FOR TRESPASSERS, ALL TO BURY THE NEXT GENERATION UNDER THE SAND ’ worldtravellermagazine.com 55
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