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I am traveling Oman for a week with a friend then North Korea with another friend next week. I'm planning to ski in the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai during my 15hr layover on the way, to complete the Axis of Evil ski tour. Yes there is a ski slope in the mall! I'll properly finish the tour by skiing Iraq next year and hopefully also the Afghan Ski Challenge then too, but Dubai makes a good substitute in the meanwhile.
Here are my Oman photos. Today we're in Sur, near the easternmost point on the Arabian Peninsula. Lovely little town, reminded me of some fishing villages in Japan, like Shimoda, and Thailand. Stayed in the the Desert Discovery camp, Wahabi Desert last night in a hut on the side of a dune. Fantastic view of the red desert and sunset from the dining area. There we went dune bashing with a Beduin. He was hugely confident and capable, basically throwing his big Landcruiser at the dunes, sliding across the faces of them or launching over the top. We didn't get any air, although everything but. .. Took a few videos but it's hard to see how risky it looked from the cabin.
Before that we spent 2 days in the area of Nizwa, a larger town SW of Muscat, the capital. First day we went to the top of Jebel Shams, Oman's largest mountain, and did the Balcony Walk. This skirts Wadi Gul, Grand Canyon of Arabia. Spectacularly deep with precipitous drops right the way round it made for a worthwhile trek along with the abandoned village of stone huts and a lake at the end. The second day in the Nizwa area we went up Green Mountain and saw Stage 5 of the Tour of Oman. We saw Froome, reigning TDF champ, win the climb finish by 20 sec. It was exciting being there as everyone crossed the line exhausted and was then pushed a bit further up out of the way by their team. I've never had the opportunity to basically mill about amongst all the cyclists at the end, adding to the drama was the chopper overhead. Afterward we went down the hill and caught the jersey presentation, with the sultan of Oman giving them out! Quite a day and Henry being a Brit thought it was particularly successful.
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