Hummer Trip

            This past weekend turned out to be one of my best weekends in Oman yet. I feel like I say this every week, but this time you’ll have to agree that going desert camping in the Wahhiba Sands with a group of seven Hummers may be one of the coolest things I’ve done in my life, period.

            Mohammed, a relative of my host family who I hadn’t even met before, contacted my family and asked if I was free this weekend and wanted to hang out with him. At the time, I didn’t know what exactly he and I were going to do, but when we came to pick me up Thursday morning with one of his buddies in his suped-up yellow Hummer, I knew this weekend would be memorable. We drove to the Muscat mall, where we met up with six other Hummers, and we then set out for the Wahhiba Desert, a three hour drive from Muscat.

            On our way, we stopped at the house of one of the guys Faleh, who hosted us, and we had a full meal of a freshly killed lamb and, of course, rice. This gave me the opportunity to meet the fourteen other guys who were with us on the trip, most of whom are in the oil business. After the traditional custom of Omani coffee and dates, we left Faleh’s house to watch the district horse race, something I had never seen before. Most of the Arab men there were wearing turbans and hanjars (the Omani knife), and the horses were decked out in Arabian-style jewelry. There were a lot of ritualistic dances and singing going on, and attending the race seemed to be the thing to do on a weekend in Oman’s interior. After watching part of the race and seeing the sun starting to set, we headed to the edge of the sand dunes. However, we waited for complete darkness before we set out in our Hummer caravan into the desert, an hour drive to a special place where these guys had camped before. Once we arrived, we set up camp, cooked meat, and two of the guys played the oud (a Middle Eastern instrument) and the drum. They then shared stories around the hookah pipe as it was being passed around.

            I was the first one to hit the sack at 2AM, sleeping in a tent under the stars and waking up to a rising sun at 6. All morning Friday we ventured out in the Hummers to explore the desert. We came across some camels belonging to some local Bedouin. Mohammed thought he knew how to make them kneel, so he kept on kicking the one camel in the shins. After about five kicks, Mr. Camel was not a happy camper and started to make himself a loogie. We ran away in time before things got too out of hand! After that, we did some dunebashing in the sand dunes. Every now and then, one of the Hummers would get stuck in the sand, and we’d all work to tow it out with another one of the vehicles. By early afternoon, we headed back to Muscat, taking our time and stopping at a few places on the way, getting back at about midnight.

            It was a long weekend, and people at the Center can testify I came into class the next morning looking pretty beat. But let me tell you, it was sure worth it!

Watching the horse race

Driving in the Wahhiba

Taking a turn in the back seat