Jacqui and Richard Abroad: Thursday, February 18th - Desert Camping and Wadi Bani Khalid

We started our second semester on the 8th of February, but since nothing changes (same timetable, same classes, same everything). it wasn't that exciting, maybe except for the fact that we are now in semester 2 and getting closer to summer holidays!
Last weekend, we drove to the Wahiba Sands for overnight desert camping. Not being sure of where we had to go, we googled it to get directions. Here's what we got!!

From Google Maps - very useful!!!!

Just to add to the confusion, our highways are not indicated by numbers except on a map. You will seldom see a number sign along the road, well pratically never. However, getting there turned out to be very simple, after having talked to the people at the camp the day before. There was four of us and we arrived at the camp early afternoon and were the only ones there for a while. We had some snacks and chatted for a bit. We went "dune bashing" later on; it was great. Some of the dunes in the desert can reach up to 100m, so driving in there was just a blast (dunes are much more higher than the ones close to Dubai). Our driver was also a little on the crazy side so we went up and down some pretty steep dunes! He then dropped us off on top of one dune, close to the camp, so we could watch the sunset, before walking back to camp for dinner. Sunset was really impressive as there was no haze in the air, like we often get on the water. It was also interesting to see how fast things cooled off. At 5 pm, the temperature was 28 and the sand still felt fairly warm. At 5:45, with the sun going down, the temperature had dropped to 21 and the sand was cold.
The next morning, we had breakfast and then drove to Wadi Bani Khalid, one of the most popular landmarks of Oman. It has a few nice natural pools of water to swim in and is being fed by an underground spring. It is a very nice place to see.