Wadi Shaab and Wadi Beni Khalid

Wadis are the ultimately amazingly beautiful places to visit in Oman. The term wadi just refers to a dried up river bed. In reality, these simple dried up river beds have amazingly high cliffs that surround you from the side, and you hike and climb towards the center of where the river would have been. There are many Wadis, although the best ones have freshwater waterfalls and streams that you somehow find your way to.

The first wadi that I went to was Wadi Shab, a cool wadi that is fairly civilized. It has a footpath to get towards the water and is a long but pretty easy hike. There are places where you have to jump from rock to rock but overall it is easy and nice. The scenary is beautiful because you look towards the right and left and you see these huge cliff of reds and oranges surrounding you. In the middle where you are walking, you see a river and even palm trees. It looks and feels like an oasis from somewhere in your imagination. After hiking a while, you end up finding a good spot to jump into the semi-cool freshwater. The water is extremely clear and beautiful, and definitely drinkable. Wadi Shab has an interesting part where you go and swim between two extremely close boulders (so close that the only part that fits above water is your head- and snuggly at that). When you get inside, it's a small cave with a water fall and natural formations that you can sit and relax on. It was amazingly beautiful.

The second wadi within Oman that I went to was Wadi Beni Khalid. This wadi is extremely famous, except what many people don't know is that there are two ways to approach the wadi. One side is an extremely easy walk, while the other is definitely more challenging. My group, of course, took the challenging side. The challenging side feels like this is the way it has always been, almost like it has not been altered by mankind. There are huge boulders to climb and rocks to jump from one to the other from. It was extremely scary for me. I was with three guys, and as the only female I felt like i shoudl be brave. Although, I was dead afraid and there were probably 3 or 4 times where I was almost preparing myself for death. When we go to the water the only way to get in was to jump off the cliff. It was amazingly fun and exhilerating. We were soon joined in the small freshwater lake by local boys. These boys really seemed like they were injected with spiderman juice. They would jump from one rock to another and easily climb up and up. They were absolutely amazing. On the way back we were helped by the local boys, and it was greatly appreciated. Yet, when we got to the city we had a choice of either walking right in the heat and sun or walking through the village in the shade. We ended up getting lost in the village. The tiny town was extremely cool. From it we were able to see how the Omanis really lived traditionally. There were small streams that were being controlled through clay fellajes (way of controlling the water for agricultural purposes). It was cool to see it in authentic action. Also, there were some places where you walked and just saw a couple of wooden planks raised up to form a platform that had small mats where men prayed throughout the day. In my mind, this is the way that religion should be practiced. A place where you are one with nature and yourself. It's extremely peaceful and you don't need someone to guide you in prayer, it is just you and whatever god or gods you pray to. Something about the village was extremely calming and nice. :)