Oman and Cyprus... then on to Italy

We are now in Cyprus, having just finished up a few days in Oman. We leave EARLY tomorrow morning (3 AM wake up call) for Italy to start the Europe leg - the last international rally of this year's trip (I'm so sad already).  

The Europe leg typically involves us getting dropped in one country  and we have to find our own way across 2-3 other countries (doing scavenges along the way) until we meet back the group after 4 or 5 days. It is nerve-wracking because you have to figure out all of the travel logistics AND do the scavenges. We will not know even in what direction we are supposed to travel until Bill opens the leg tomorrow afternoon.  This is a fun – but hard – leg as you have to travel with ALL of your luggage to every place / scavenge and it can be hell. But there’s nothing shabby about starting in Rome as I LOVE Italy.

Info on rankings of the teams:  As predicted, we we lost the Sri Lanka leg - badly.  Then we eeked out  a win in Oman which put us back into first place coming into Cyprus. But there are two other super-competitive teams (the sisters from Sydney Australia and a couple for New Zealand) that are very close on our heels and we did not have a great leg in Cyprus.  I’m projecting that we'll  be  in 2^nd or 3^rd place starting off the Europe leg. The Europe leg  a Par 5 rank – which means that there are a LOT OF POINTS at stake over the next few days. It's going to crazy to the end. 

Anyway, here's my stories  from the last two countries. When Bill said that we were going to Oman I was less than excited. Boy was I wrong. It’s still too early to really call it… but ... so far… Oman is my second favorite country this year. Mainly because of the people. They are so nice. They go out of their way to help you.  We asked a woman for directions as she was walking to her mosque for prayers with her sister.  She sent the sister inside, got into her car and drove 11 minutes with us following her to show us the exact turn-off we ended (as her English was not great enough to verbally explain the route).  I' not sure I'm even that nice to strangers. 

And the country is far more beautiful that you can imagine.  Oman is a wealthy country (oil) – east of Saudi and South of Iran.  It’s on the ocean and it has only 1.5 million citizens with another 1.5 million of migrant workers (mainly from South East Asia). In fact, 2/3rds of our plane from Sri Lanka were migrant workers – gardeners, maids, construction workers, waiters. All manual labor jobs is done by migrant workers who come in on 6 month to 1 year work visas. The Sultan of Oman has done an excellent job using the oil money to build an impressive infrastructure of great roads and a very high standard of living. He is truly beloved by his people.

OMAN:  Just a few of our favorite scavenges for Oman: 

 (a) Get henna. I decided on a leg henna decoration. Emily got some beautiful designs on her hands but I have a big Daubert hearing right as I get back to the US and I thought the federal judge might be a little put off with intricate designs all over my hands and forearms. Might be a little “out there” for him; 

 (b)  Smoke from a Hubbly-Bubbly pipe in this trendy Shisha or Hooka bar.  It made me cough - a lot.  

 (c) We saw dawn break while at  a fort in the harbor of Muscat - a nice town built right onto a harbor. 

(d) Had to take in a  fish auction at the fish market in Barka – a town about 30 minutes from Muscat. The man to the left is the auctioneer. When he hits the broomstick on the tile, the auction is over and that lot of fish has been sold to the highest bidder. 

(e) There are A LOT of forts in Oman. And they all look basically the same … like a sandcastle that you’d build on the beach – all boxy and with multiple turrets.  We had to visit a half-dozen of them - all over the country.  They do have beautiful views and feet-thick walls. 

(e) We had to take a swim in the hot springs of  an oasis town. It's not just in fairy tales and bible stories. There really are towns in the middle of dry, arid land where hot water bubbles up from the ground. In some places, the hot water forms jacuzzi-like pools  where you can swim and lounge around .  Weird, huh?  

(f) We had to hike in a dried-out river bed called Wadi Ghul. The river bed is rocky and uneven and the cliffs rise hundreds of feet above you.

  

(g) We saw the Grand Canyon of the Middle East – a place called Jabel Shams. It is really beautiful and an amazing gorge. You can hike in and around it for weeks... wish we'd had time!!!

(h) We also drove down to Sur.. a sleepy little seaside village with a great sunset and had drinks and delicious Shwarma (basically a meal … chicken, salad, French fries, sauce… all diced up and loaded into a pita bread).  

Observations:

1     (1) Very unfairly, the men get to wear light gown-like clothes in WHITE.. with decorated tea-cozies as hats. The women are relegated to heavy BLACK gowns with full head scarves.  In a country with such hot weather, the women definitely got the short end of that straw.  

     

 (2) We stopped at a roadside restaurant for some food.  I entered the main door. I was immediately ushered out and shown the side door that leads into a back room (called the “family room”) where women are allowed to eat.  Women are not permitted in the main restaurant.  And while the rest room for the men is inside the main building, the toilet for women is outside, around back and in a shed.  Sort of brought home - in a real way - how women are really viewed in a Muslim country. 

3  (3)  And just in case you were not sure exactly how you were supposed to dress here...   the ladies’ rest room sign visually depicts  the proper attire for women. 

  (4)      Fruit at the market – especially when cut open to show their great color – attract a HUGE AMOUNT OF FLIES..  It is stunningly gross and makes you never want to eat watermelon again- EVER.  And yes, every one of those black dots is a fly!!!

   (5) At the market in Nizwa, you can buy a live goat at auction OR - even more enticing - a fully skinned goat ready for cooking. 

CYPRUS:  Then we headed to Cyprus... another new place for me.  We only ended up with one full day here and we really needed more. Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean – east of Turkey and Northwest of Israel.  It is an independent country (since 1960) but – in 1974 – Turkey invaded the island and now occupies the top 1/3^rd.  Turkey has 40,000 troops here to guard that part of the island (called the Occupied Territory) and Turkey’s presence  is very controversial. There is tons of history here and lots of great stuff to do  but we did not have time to even attempt many of them.

We started off on the Cyprus / Greek side of the city of Nicosia and then crossed over the border into the Turkish occupied territory – through the no man’s land of the un-official border. There are Burning Man-like protests in the "Green Line" or that area between the two countries. 

 On the Turkish side we  ate Turkish delight - a gelatin type candy with very fine powdered sugar on top.

We then caught a bus to the North to visit  a Turkish harbor city called Kyrenia.  

Ant that's when we  decided to be bad and play hookey.  Although it was not a scavenge (and thus we got NO POINTS for doing it), we rented a boat for a few hours and sailed down the coast and swam in the Mediterranean. The water is so clear that you can see the bottom of the ocean from 35 feet up. It was awesome to be off the "run everywhere, hurry to finish scavenges" rat wheel for a few hours. We felt so naughty and decadent doing it. 

 That afternoon Bill really put us to  work. We had two - back-to-back -  LONG, DIFFICULT, EXHAUSTING hikes up full mountains to see castles built in the time of the crusades. The views were stunning and actually worth the treks up (although I do admit that I cussed and cussed all the way to the top).  And yes, we had to hike to the very top of each mountain to get the points. I’m going to be sore for days.  

This is the Queen’s window where she sat and probably did some type of needlework as she looked out over her country. Real neat feeling to sit right there -  exactly where you know she sat hundreds of years ago - and literally be in her space. 

I’ll try and get on the internet during some part of the Europe leg and -at least - let you all know where we are – and where we are heading.  I may not be able to fully  blog because this leg  typically involves long hard days and very little sleep (a lot like the rest of this adventure). So stay tuned…and keep leaving comments… they really help boost morale.