A nonstop flight from Atlanta landed us in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where we hopped on a bus for the six-hour journey southeast to Muscat, on the Gulf of Oman. The Omani capital served as our base as we cruised the various car rental agencies searching for the best deal on a Land Rover and stocked up on groceries.
Oman is home to many attractions suited to visitors keen on history and cultural experiences. But we wanted to go rock climbing in the Hajar Mountains, which offer an incredible diversity of routes ranging from mountain scrambles to the highly technical. That was the plan — until at every turn chains of emerald pools tucked into boulder-strewn valleys distracted us. We quickly shelved our scheme to climb high and dry in the baking sun.
These seasonal pools, or wadis, at the bottom of deep canyons have been incorporated into a network of waterways, or aflaj. First introduced by Persian settlers over 2,000 years ago, these waterways still irrigate village orchards and fields and act as a supplementary water source for residents. In 2006, UNESCO placed five of them on the World Heritage list, as a means of representing the 3,000 aflaj throughout the Omani countryside.
Oman has long been overshadowed by the glitz of places such as the emirate Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital. Oman’s leader, Sultan Qaboos, has spent the last 40 years working to modernize his county. Before 1970, when Qaboos overthrew his father in a bloodless coup, Oman had 10 kilometers of paved road, two primary schools, no secondary schools, and two hospitals run by a US mission. Today the country of 2.9 million (about a fifth of whom are non-nationals) has many hospitals, schools, and universities, more than 11,000 kilometers of paved roads, and road construction chugs along at a staggering pace.
