Author: Robin Chartier

That’s what I was whispering to myself as we were driving out into the middle of nowhere on our way to Wahiba Sands. We went from highway to winding two lane roads to a single lane blacktop to sand. And then we kept driving. For another 45 minutes. I swear it was well over an hour, but Josh promises me it just felt that way.
It was bad enough on the winding roads through the mountains when the impatient drivers would pass on blind corners with no regard for anyone coming the other way. One dude was the best “chicken” player I’ve ever seen – he pulled straight into oncoming traffic to pass a slow moving bus and didn’t blink as the oncoming car swerved onto the shoulder to avoid hitting him head on. The crazy part was that the oncoming driver didn’t seem phased by it either.
Whatever. I’ve seen bad drivers before. But driving out into the middle of endless sand just about put me over the edge. I should have known when we pulled into a gas station at the end of the blacktop and had to let air out of our tires so we didn’t get stuck in the sand that it was not going to be as easy as pulling up to the local motel 6. I knew we were going camping in the desert, but I pictured it kind of like the Palm Springs/29 Palms desert – out by the windmills. Drive off the main road a few hundred yards, bumping a little bit over the sand/gravel and there you go. Not so much.
This was slipping/sliding/Laurence of Arabic sand dunes. Big ones. And inside my head, a small voice kept telling me, “You’re crazy. Do you know how far away you are from any type of emergency services? What if your car breaks down or you roll off one of these massive hills of sand?!” Since we had driven through at least two hours of nothing even before venturing out into the sand, I knew it was a really long way to any sort of civilization. And driving over the sand felt like hydroplaning on the freeway – 45 minutes of feeling like your tires didn’t have secure contact with the road and you could go sliding out of control at any minute.
Of course I was the only one having these logical thoughts – the rest of the family was having fun riding the sand waves. Meanwhile I was wondering if I had packed my special yellow pills . . .

a whole lot of nothing but sand . . .

You know you’ve gone too far when you see camels roaming free . . .
Logically I knew we were fine, but the safety girl inside me was having a fit. The drive back out of the desert was much easier. Partly because I realized that the sliding feeling was normal and didn’t mean that Josh had lost control of the car, but mostly because safety girl was happy we were finally headed in the right direction.

I felt at home in the Bedouin tent. We should have had one of these for the past few months. It would have made all our comings and goings much more convenient.

inside the tent the walls were made from beautiful and heavy woven rugs that were pieced together and draped over a wooden post in the middle of the room and one at each corner. The door at the back of the tent led to our bathroom.

Completely enclosed on all sides, but open to the sky. Camping with hot private showers? Heavenly. No trudging down to the public bathroom to wash our feet in the sandy shower stalls on this trip (Hicks family vacation reference).

There were some mesh “windows” in the sides of the tent to provide airflow. The temperature in the tent wasn’t too bad in the middle of the day, but when it cooled down outside in the evening, it was still really hot in the tent which made falling asleep difficult. It would be unbearably hot in the middle of summer. It has been 90 degrees here every day and really humid. Like Indiana humid. I would say “Florida humid,” but I’ve never been to Florida in the summer. I have been to Indiana though and it felt like I was breathing in hot, wet air. It’s not that bad in Oman, but it’s close. 

More woven rugs covered the floors. We had two beds and 2 pallets on the floor for the boys. Everyone slept really well except I was woken up around 3am when this pesky mosquito kept buzzing in my ear. I couldn’t see a thing in the pitch blackness, but I could hear the little sucker getting closer and farther away and then really close . . . until he landed on my hand and all was silent. I grabbed at him and I’m assuming I caught him because I didn’t hear any high pitched “zeeeeeeee!” in my ear after that. Just call me “Mr. Miagi.”

These boys were obviously not bothered by any bugs. They slept like rocks. Especially since the tent kept things cool and dark in the morning after the sun came up.

We had dinner and breakfast in this beautiful open-air restaurant. One section had traditional-style dining with pillows on the floor and the other section had couches with pillows at regular table height. The food was delicious: lamb that had been roasted over coals in a pit in the ground (we watched them dig it up), BBQ chicken, cucumber salad, flatbread, rice, vegetable bisque with cilantro and lemon . . . mmm.
I really hope we’re able to go again when camping season starts again in October (it’s too hot between now and then and most camps shut down). My verdict is that it’s worth the drive. That’s saying a lot coming from me!

I haven’t had internet or tv since we left the hotel on Saturday morning. I guess it’s really only been 4 days, but it feels like an eternity. Not a bad one. Just different. I was walking by a tv in a store yesterday and the news was on and I realized that all sorts of things could be happening in the world right now and I wouldn’t have a clue. Brangelina could be adopting more babies, there could be freak blizzards in Florida, world leaders could have been overthrown in the last 4 days, and I would be here in my happy little bubble of ignorance.

Speaking of happy bubbles, I’m enjoying mine. I currently have in hand the best cappuccino I’ve had since arriving in Oman (this particular Starbucks barista knows what he’s doing, everyone else has just made me a latte with extra foam), I have my free wifi and am kid free for a few hours. Unfortunately I ran out with a netbook that was low on battery life and the European outlets won’t fit my charger so the dream is going to end soon. In 48 minutes, to be precise. 

Josh is at the embassy getting paperwork filled out so we can get a connection to the rest of the world at our house, and the kids? They are all at home with the maid. Today is her third day working at our house and I have all the confidence in the world that Camille is in capable hands. She’s more cautious than I am. She asked us go out and buy outlet protectors for all the electrical outlets in the house because she wanted to make sure the baby didn’t get shocked. Meanwhile I was thinking, “Eh, she can hardly crawl yet. I bet we have a long time before we need those. And doesn’t getting shocked count as a Logical Consequence?” Just kidding about that last part. Then when Lucy installed them she even protected the outlets above the kitchen countertop. I bet she’s worried about Bob shocking himself too. The poor lady doesn’t know I’ve been letting him handle electrical appliances for years, but I’m not going to complain about her being too cautious!

Anyway, Starbucks is only 2 blocks away from our house and I figure Camille has 4 babysitters at home so she is a very well protected baby. So much to tell, but so little battery life left. Ma’salama until my next Starbucks run. Back to my information-free bubble!

I need to change the name of this blog to: Moving/Packing/Traveling since it seems like that’s all I have to write about lately. We’re home and doing lots of laundry to keep from tracking the kilos of desert sand we brought back with us to our new house when we move tomorrow. (Notice how I used the metric system there? I’m so international. Either that or I’ve gotten a side job as a drug dealer.) We’re too tired to pack up the hotel like regular people and I’m sick of trying to fit everything back in our suitcases, so Josh went out and bought some plastic tubs to throw a bunch of stuff in. We figure the boys can use them as clothes hampers in the new house since we don’t have those anymore either.

The plan is to pack up and check out of the hotel tomorrow morning while Josh picks up our house keys at the embassy. Move everything over to the new house, return the rental car, then Josh has afternoon meetings at the embassy and we will figure out how to get settled in the house while he’s off doing that. Then hopefully we can go grocery shopping so we can eat real food tomorrow night (so sick of eating out/getting take-out).

Oh, and we may not have internet for a few days. It depends on when Josh has time to get it set up.

Here’s a taste of our weekend. More to come after we’re settled:

Tomorrow we’re headed off on a little desert adventure. We rented a 4×4 vehicle for the weekend (so we temporarily have 2 rental cars) and we are going to camp in Bedouin-style tents out in the desert tomorrow night.

So that means more packing tonight after some shopping today. Rebuying things like beach towels, a cooler, sunscreen, and several other items that we already own, but that are currently enjoying their vacation in Egypt without us.

Since I won’t have internet access out there, there won’t be any new blog posts until after we get home sometime on Friday night.

A funny story from the shopping expedition today as told by Josh. I was at home with a very tired baby, attempting to get her to nap, which is not a funny story, so I’ll share his instead.

As the boys were all walking back to the car after shopping, they saw about 5 Indian/Pakistani dudes getting into the car next to our rental (their nationality is important only to point out that Josh couldn’t speak Arabic to them). Instead of returning their cart to the cart return which was located right behind their car, they left the cart right behind our car. Josh caught their eyes, and waved his finger at them “No, no, no,” but they ignored him and got in their car to leave anyway.

So as Josh went to put our things in the trunk, he pushed the cart over behind their car again, leaving them no choice but to get out of the car and return the cart to the proper place before they could drive away. To get their revenge, they gave Calvin the finger as they were driving away, which is pretty nervy considering that giving someone the finger here can get you arrested and thrown in jail for 2 days. Seriously. Just google it if you don’t believe me.

Unfortunately Calvin didn’t tell Josh about the finger until they had already left, or Josh may have been tempted to see how seriously the Omani police actually take an accusation of profanity after all the dire warnings we received during the embassy welcome brief.

So to sum up: profanity? bad. Packing? a pain. The desert?  hopefully fun.