February 22, 2011 Ad Duqm to Ras Al Hadd

We were up, breakfasted and on the road by 8 am yesterday after checking in to our guest house we had a call and heard that Eloise's purse had been stolen from her while she was sitting in the Diwan car outside of the Kmiji store in Ruwi. Thankfully she was not hurt only shocked as we all would have been. We have been sending emails with lists of action items while we are driving along trying to determine if we need to abandon our plans of driving the last bit of Oman's coast that we have not yet explored.

In the Wusta province we have noticed at all the small villages clusters of the same type of homes and now have concluded that there is a program in Oman for providing housing. We will have to check into what this is. The ladies that were making the baskets all lived in those model homes which are of a substantial 2 story size.

By 10 am we were at the road junction to Maiserah. We filled up the gas and confirmed with the Omanis that there was now a road up the coast through the sand dunes that would take us up to Ras al Jinz. This is the last segment of the coast that we had never seen. We stopped at Ras Ruways to check the beaches and talk to the fisherman. There were large dhows off the coast at this point but they were not being operated by them. No shells to speak of. We continued on to Qurun where we had lunch of fish, chicken, cabbage and tomatoe salad (hope we won't be sorry about the salad). We also checked the beaches at Ras Jibsh, Ras as Saqlah and Ras al Jifan. Somehow we came up a graded road in a wadi that was amazinlgly green. A young omani directed is on how to get to Ras al Jinz on some unmarked minor track. Needless to say the GPS was on so that we could track back if necessary! He was spot on though and we found our way. We had given a call to Alexander, a member of the French/Italian team excavating at Ras al Jinz, and arranged to meet him for a tour of the site at 4pm. He pointed out the various time periods of the site starting at 2,000 to 3,000 BC and forward with some iron age and Islamic sites. You could see on the ground the previous walls that had been revealed in earlier exvacations. Apparantly the winds the Tyhon Phet were so strong they blew off the sand that the walls had been protected with. We were able to get a barasti hut on the beach at the Turtle Beach Resort for 45 omr including dinner and breakfast. We upscaled to the barasti huts with with an ensuite bathroom and thus also have AC which is not needed as their is a lovely coastal breeze. We were able to invite guests to the dinner buffet so on learning this we called to have Alex and Valentina join us for dinner and drinks. Wine by the glass was at the unbelievalbe price of 1 omr per glass! As it turned out we had the entire team as our guests.

We have been reading 3 books on this journey: Randolph Fiennes' Search for Atlantis of the Sands, David Smiley's Arabian Assignment, and the archelogical report on Sumrahan. All fun reading as these travelers were in the areas we are driving at different time periods ranging from 1950 to the 1970s.

Tomorrow we will be up early as we have mad an arrangement to see the rest of the Jinz archelogical site that we did not make it to this afternoon and then we will do the piece of the coast that we missed!