We drove for 2½ hours to get to Wahiba Sands. The point of most people's visit it to drive around on the sand dunes, view camels, more sand, be held captive with a crazy driver, perhaps visit a family and ride a camel, and then drive back out of the dunes in a terror stricken and seemingly dangerous manner. It was a lot of fun.
It appeared that anyone can rent a 4x4 vehicle like a Land Rover, and then take off into the dunes. On our return trip we saw a burnt out vehicle abandoned amidst the dunes. I am not suggesting any conclusions, only saying that perhaps we may have drawn one up on our own.
We stayed with our guide and professional driver who has driven countless times over the dunes. He knew all the good places to go where he could scare the wits out of me. I am glad he was able to laugh all day long over this. Apparently I was the only one in this adventure who had actually been in a car that HAD rolled over. No it is not fun. However, I did not have to relive that nightmare over again this day. We had new nightmares to create. I put a photo of the dune we drove straight down to the left. Also note that we went up it in order to go down it.
One of the best parts of our trip was to visit a bedouin family. ("Bedouin" is Arabic for "nomad".) They had a tent set up with rugs on either side and sand in the middle. You can take your shoes off before going on to the area with rugs, where we went to sit for coffee. The woman had some crafts for sale, of course, and we were able to purchase a camel ride for each of us. I played dress up with the little girl who lived there. She was so cute wrapped up in scarves and dancing around. She wanted to wear it if I wore it first. We transferred jewelry and scarves between us and she just beamed. She even tried on the face mask that has a band that covers beneath the eyes. But she was so tiny it went beneath her nose and looked like a mustache. I laughed a lot about that.
