Day 212 – Ras an Nuqdah, Oman
Christmas was gone, everybody left our camp on the beach of Al Ras Hadd in all sorts of directions, Marc, Dali and Me were the last persons who cycled away. A few Kilometres later Dali and I said goodbye to Marc who was off to catch his flight in Muscat to Sri Lanka for his next stage around the world.
The road down south was small, quite with long stretches of sand to the right and the ocean to the left. The randomly single houses and towns went further away from each other as we got more south. To saw the amount of Fisher boats and Daus laying on the beach or anchor on the coast looked like a long parking lot and made shown that the majority of life and work here is done on the water rather than the desert behind the town which blow constantly the sand angle deep in between the houses. Trucks get loaded fish directly on the beach and for the local market the fish is prepared in an open pavilion one boat length away from the water. It is so interesting to watch how the men cleaning the fish with routine hands and big knifes.
So difficult to life in that land of sand so easy were the evenings to camp along in the many pick nick pavilions along the coast. We were in the first row to watch the evening Entertainment of lightning waves caused by green fluorescent plankton which brings also your hole body in light when you take a tip in the sea.
New Years Eve was very unspectacular, just camping outside a fisher village on the beach, watching the lightning waves and got delicious Pakistani food. This Atmosphere changed the next day. We had breakfast in the same restaurant from the day before to charge our batteries and prepare for the 100 km stretch trough the sand dunes without no bigger Village along the way. Children were constantly around and touching the bikes like always. We rode out of the village a few Kilometres to let all the humble and buzzing behind us, when out of nothing three boys crossing the road some meters in front of us the oldest of them, maybe around 15 Years old, reached out his arms to made us stop. I made clear that I will not stop and grabbed my handlebar tight because the day before I had a similar situation. While passing them I focused on his hands to make sure he is not able to grab me but his focus was the bag of my panniers where some water bottles and foot was strapped on. It was not about what is on there he just wanted to get what ever is in reach, and he could get of me. In this case nothing, just the stuff got out of position and a water bottle got opened because I knocked away his hands. The atmosphere was straight aggressive, I looked back to check anything is lost and slowed down to shout on them when the boys started to back off, and we continued cycling.
The Rest of the way was very peaceful, with the sun burning hard on us and the sand dunes growing bigger. A gentle tailwind made it easier to cycle down along fisher villages which were basically a bunch of huts made out metal sheets standing between the dunes. Outstanding was also the constant flow of trucks passing us coming from the coast where they got loaded with fish just in the sandy nowhere every 10 KM. In the middle of nowhere was also our destination for that trip a 10 km long road going out on a sandbank where on it end dozens of daus and fisher boats laying in the upcoming sunset around the port of Ras an Nuqda which brings us of to the Island Masirah for relaxing and meeting some friends again the following days.
