Tag Archives: siesta

Day 14 – Finally some rest

Having travelled for almost two weeks straight without any rest day, we were really craving a bit of doing nothing. Even when we spent two nights at the same camp ground (which happened twice so far), we still explored cities on those days. One can hardly call those “days off”, especially for Flo who usually carries Number 3 in the carrier backpack.

So today, was going to be a day of sweet nothingness. Of lazy lounging on the camp ground and of idle wandering towards the pool. We had exactly the right camp ground for this. And we had picked a good day for it as well: Not only was it Sunday (cough) but it was Election Day in Spain and we wanted to get out of any of the shenanigans that might come with it. It was a lovely sunny day to boot.

So we woke up to a sunrise over olive trees while camping underneath one. Between 9 and 11 our camp ground provide breakfast and it was divine. Nothing special but it came made for us, no work involved. Also breakfast is the best meal of the day. 🙂

“Doing nothing” turned into “slowly doing some chores” which included washing and drying our big pile of dirty laundry. Then we had the usual lunch with bread, cheese and the ton of ham and sausage that Flo had bought yesterday. An afternoon nap marked the time between lunch and the pool.

Number 3 was very keen on getting into the pool. His mind changed after he had his legs in the very refreshing water. Instead, he played a bit with the water jets while we took turns going for a short and rather hectic swim.

Flo prepared a lovely, mushroom risotto for dinner with a local sherry as the secret ingredient. Cordoba is in the sherry triangle of Spain apparently. Since the recipe only uses one glass, we had almost a whole bottle of sherry left…Flo can only drink so much. So he traded with our neighbours and was gifted with a glass of their sweeter sherry in return, which even I kinda liked.

Number 3’s bedtime had to be pushed to 30 minutes to an hour later than usual after yesterday’s disaster of trying to get a baby to sleep in a hot tent while the sun is still shining. On it. Just to be clear. Now, at about 8pm, dusk had already begun and Number 3 had no qualms with going to bed.

It left enough time to get a cold drink from the bar and sit quietly under an old olive tree for a while, watching the world turn pink, purple and blue. A generally great rest day was had. 🙂

  • Good morning olive trees
  • and good morning to you, blossoming old olive tree.
  • free entertainment in form of the lot barrierers
  • looking a lot more traveling vagabonde with a weeks worth of washing out
  • too much work, nap time
  • wanna play ball?
  • that is just about enough cold water
  • better to play with the round thing once more
  • technically we started here …
  • … and travelled all the way to the other side. With a bit of a break in between, maybe
  • looks good, but the little one learned his lesson around hot things about a minite from here
  • coulourful pastoral landscape all around

Day 256 – Desert Road

From 3000 old stock this wadi has been upgraded to 10000 plants in total

From 3000 old stock this wadi has been upgraded to 10000 plants in total

Two days in Salalah were over. The only thing we hadn’t really seen are frankincense trees as the ones in the wadi yesterday seemed quite sad. However, a plantation of frankincense trees was marked for a location between Salalah and Thumrayt. Since it was on the way, we went to see it. Given it doesn’t look like much at all, the smell of the sap was incredibly incense-like right there.

From here, our gaze went northwards again, towards the mountains of Jebel Akhdar and Jebel Shams. The first city at the foot of the mountain ranges is Nizwa…about 900km from here. And the road leading there directly is straight through the desert, with the Empty Quarter (2000km of desert separating Oman and Saudi-Arabia) to the west.

First glimpse of what was to come ...

First glimpse of what was to come …

The Lonely Planet states that you can do the journey in one go. In a car. There is no way we can do it but we still wanted to get as much done today as we could so that we’ll arrive in Nizwa tomorrow.

The first couple of hours were fine since we started early enough to have a fresh breeze from moving. Landscape-wise it is rather unremarkable because it’s simply lacking in any features. After a while, it becomes a drag. I took a photo every hour or so to show “yep, still flat and empty over here”. We made incredible progress though with the kilometers just flying by.

Three hours later, no change

Three hours later, no change

There are a couple of roadside rest houses, usually attached to an oasis, with a gas station and a tiny restaurant. When we hit the third one, we had Indian food once more, which is still really nice and filling. When we got back on the road after lunch, the heat became harder to bear. Flo thought that I started to be stupid but I just couldn’t think straight (or fast) anymore. I was already good for a siesta at 1pm but Flo pushed it out to 2pm and a 100 kilometers further down the road.

At this point we reached Hayma, a bigger town along the road. Here, Flo put me in another shaded pagoda where I just sat while he organised juice and water before I took a one hour nap. That was sorely needed and quite comfy especially because I took my shoes off.

This field of sand dunes after 650 km was a small hint of the empty quarter behind

This field of sand dunes after 650 km was a small hint of the empty quarter behind

We kept going again at 3pm for as long as we could. Starting to look for a camping spot turned out to be a bit tricky in a vast, flat area. When we came past some sand dunes, Flo took the chance. It was probably still too close to the road for a perfect spot but it gave us some privacy nonetheless.

Dinner was had on top of a sand dune while watching the sunset. A tiny lizard hung around to pose for our pictures which we were thankful for. The night turned out to be rather hot with an approximate 30 degrees until dawn.