Last serious walk before Kilimanjaro

After the cold weekend two weeks ago we have decided to abandon the tent in favour of two nights in the Al Hoota Guest House. Dinner was waiting for us at 10pm when we arrived on Thursday night. We though fish a chips together with chicken tikka was a bit of a strange mix but the guest house obviously thought it was OK as they served the same again on Friday night.

A migraine for Sue the next morning delayed our start so it was midday before we finished the winding trip down Wadi Bani Awf to the start of walk. With less than six hours of daylight left we couldn’t hang around so it was a particularly strenuous 1,050m climb up the cliff face and along the ridge back to the guest house. We did this walk almost exactly one year ago with Paul and Wendy so knew what we were in for. The trek summary says;

Degree of difficulty: Grade 3. Old donkey path, very exposed in parts to height. For sure-footed and experienced hikers only.

Obviously that is us and Sue seemed to have forgotten how scared she was the last time we did this. The pictures only tell half the story but you can see that they do not exaggerate when they say “very exposed in parts to height”.

We managed to get back to a dirt road just as the sun was setting and walked the last couple of kilometres along the main road to the guest by the light of the stars. Perhaps we had cut it just a little bit fine. If we had stopped for an extra 15 minutes during our lunch break we could have been in serious trouble wondering along dangerous cliffs in the dark. But it all worked out just fine so why worry!

The next day one of us had to travel the 15 km back down the wadi to collect the car while one of us stayed in bed. So 7.30 am saw me heading back down the road hoping to hitch a ride.

The first car to head my way arrived a 9 am. Four young Omani men out for a joy ride. I was very grateful for the lift and got dropped at the narrow ‘siq’ like entrance to Balad Sayt. This has been compared to the siq entrance to Petra in Jordan. Probably not quite that spectacular but still very pretty and wading through the cool water is a good way to start the day. I was lucky to tag on to a group of French tourists who had a guide showing them through the canyon so was shown the shallowest route through the pools.

Arriving this way, rather than taking the longer route by road, brings you face to face with the lush green terraced fields before ascending through the village. The village is worth visiting even if you are not planning on doing the walk.