You start asking yourself why every single trip we make has to be be so chaotic. But then there woulndt be so much to write about if everything went smooth and easy.
One of my flatmates long ago planned this trip to Musandam, let us pay in advance, confirm us several times, organized the boats and the cars. It all looked so good. Yesterday is was easier than expected to get everybody out of bed and ready to leave. The idea was to leave at 9 am, get to Musandam in like max. 3 hours and get on the boats at 1 pm.
We left the house only with half an hour delay. AWSOME!!!!
I was in the car with Daniel, my German friend and my other friends all from my flat. The trouble began at the first stop at the gas station 3 minutes away from our house. We left one car behind at the gas station. They were completely lost and didnt know how to find their right way. So Franck, our organizer, went back to fetch them and told us to already head to the border to meet there.
My friend Daniel told me several times that he knew his way to the border so off we went… We passed several signs which said “Hatta, Oman”… At some point i wondered that the street looked the same as the one time we went to Muscat, but i didnt really care, as i was sure he knew where we had to go. Only at the border, after an 3 hours ride, we noticed that we indeed were at the Muscat border, which was totally wrong. Obviously my friend never checked where Musandam is and thought Oman is Oman after all.
Musandam is a little pensinsula belonging to Oman but totally surrounded by the UAE and not connected to the “other/real” Oman. The idea never crossed my mind that he didnt check where we would be going. Well it was too late for that. The one to blame this time was myself. The atmosphere in the car was not at all the happy joyful roadtrip atmosphere anymore. What to do? There was still some time to try to get to the right border. We just had to drive through the whole country to the other side. But well, we might as well try. So the adventure began. As always we passed millions of roundabouts with the wrong signs or no signs at all but with 6 differet exits. We got lost on almost every single on of them and had to ask our way around.
It was getting later and later. We knew that 2 boats were booked for us, so one boat could leave on time with the rest of the people and one could wait for us and leave a little later.
The ”little later” was a 2 1/2 hours delay in the end. Obviously we werent the only idiots of the group. One guy in one of the other cars only had passport copies with him and not his passport. Needless to say that he couldnt cross the border and had to go back. So many people here assume that its the same way here to cross a border as it is in the EU…
Finally we arrived at the meeting point at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Chasab, just to find out that about 60 people had been waiting for us to arrive. The other beat DIDNT leave with them.
You might imagine the looks that we got from those people.
But we did end up on the boats and had a really good time there. Although we didnt see dolphins (AGAIN). Musandam is famous for its dolphins. Only i am not lucky to see them. Neither when i went there with my parents years ago (i dont count the old crippled dolphin that only swam UNDER our boat and therefore was almost impossible to see) nor yesterday.
We stopped several times to have a swim in the sea, the last time at night illuminated only by the light of the fullmoon…
Happy and exhausted we arrived back on the shore at 10 pm to start our way back to Dubai.
Shortly before the border i rememberd that i had hung up my bathing suit on the boat to let it dry. And of course this is where it still hangs.
Do i have to mention that it was the newest and nicest one i had? …
