So on this sunny morning, after the surprising storm of the previous night had finally settled, we left Khawr Al Jaramah and started driving towards the easternmost tip of the Arabian peninsula: the Ras Al Jinz turtle beach.
Before heading to the turtle beach, we first drove to the nearby village of Al Hadd. That was a typical Omani village: a few houses here and there and wide expanses of wasteland in between. An exceptionally dense concentration of shrubs populated those expanses; they must have just grown over the last night’s storm. Goats and camels seemed especially happy about it. The kids of the village, too, were very happy about last night’s rain, playing merrily around the puddles.
We had a cup of coffee and drove further to Ras Al Jinz. A small settlement of some 10 houses was located a couple of km before the beach. We had our lunch at one of those houses that operated as a restaurant of sorts, and headed to the beach.
The road led us to the parking of the resort that serves the beach. It was a pretty large and fancy building in derelict condition. I would have believed it was outright abandoned, if it wasn’t for the very few parked cars and elder European tourists we saw there.
We proceeded on foot down the sandy pathway leading to the beach. A group of massive rocks stood before the beach that is supposed to contain important archeological finds. A sign warned, “not to remove any contents”. At first sight, I didn’t quite get what contents were to be removed other than stones and sand. But upon a closer inspection, we saw a rock that resembled an elephant too much to believe it might have occurred naturally. If we were to examine the area thoroughly, I’m pretty sure we could have found many interesting things. Many discoveries that have been made in the area assert that a society linked to the Indus Valley culture thrived there in the 3rd millennium BC.
We settled on the beach and spent most of the day there: swimming, reading, strolling up and down, climbing, rocks staring at the horizon… A large amount of recent traces and dug holes at the western end of the beach suggested that there will be significant turtle activity at night.
One idea was to settle there for the night and wait for the turtles. The other idea was to head to another, smaller, turtle-hangout beach (22.4560, 59.8289) to the north that I spotted on the map, which was rather sure to be devoid of people. We decided to drive there and check it out before sunset.
The dirt road to that beach should have ideally been done in a 4×4, but we did fine with the Accent too. We approached the beach as much as we could, parked the car, packed the stuff, and proceeded on foot. We definitely made the right choice. That place was absolutely gorgeous and perfectly private. There also was a big cave that made for an ideal shelter. Into the cave we walked and pitched the tents exactly at nightfall.
What a magical night! A large portion of the galaxy manifested itself brilliantly on the deprived-of-moon, pitch-black firmament. Bulky, impetuous waves kept splashing rhythmically on the beach, bringing with them large amounts of fluorescent plankton whirling in beautiful patterns up the smooth beach acclivity together with the wave.
I spent quite a few hours sitting before the waves, meditating on the beauty of existence, and waiting for the turtle mamas, without any of them
The night at its progressed stage was even more enchanting than before. We got up and left the cave scanning the beach with the torch. Soon enough something moved. There she was, slowly and laboriously crawling up the beach impelled by her ancient, irresistible instinct of motherhood. We followed her for a little while until she tumbled into an already existing hole and took up her digging work.
We let her proceed in peace and walked down to the waterside. We spotted a couple of more turtle mothers following, still struggling to get out against the sea turbulence. I wouldn’t mind
The following morning was an excellent one. The beach was still utterly empty of people. We took a pleasant morning swim, breakfast, and set off. It was high tide and the beach was now cut in half at a rock protrusion. Big waves crashed forcibly against it so that we had to climb over the rock in order to get back to the car and head towards our next destination: which we didn’t yet know.
Accommodation and Activities in Oman
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