Thursday morning I awoke to my maid knocking on the door. She was there on time (although, I can't recall setting a time), I just kept hitting the snooze because I thought it was unfair that I was woken up twice in the night. So, as she cleaned, I was hurridly packing for our first camping trip while frantically cleaning so she didn't think I was such a slob. After about an hour my apartment was amazingly clean!
Around 10 Sarah, Miguel and I went to Tommy's to meet with Greg and Ellen and their kids and, of course, Jeff and Sara. We were caravaning down to Sur to see the turtles!
I rode with Jeff and Sara in their new used Pajero (a mini-tank). The drive was a short 3.5 hours of lightly dusted rock and the ocean on our left with mountains on our right ranging from dark gray to red, to white. We also past a few wadis which we will be returning to one of these days. The highway down to Sur was a two lane road of a four-lane highway. Confusing? We were to and our fearless leader almost had a head-on collision because we all thought we were on a one way highway, but the other half wasn't finished so they only used one side of the road. Without any indication of this, we didn't realize traffice would be coming straight at us! But, we figured it out quick. The reason for all the confusion and construction was because the Greg guides Miguel up the rocky road.entire highway had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed by the cyclone of two years ago. Crazy.
During Ramadan it is illegal to eat and drink in public. But, we were driving at lunch time, so we
had to play a game called "hide the food!" Whenever a car came we had to hide the food and drink we had for a few seconds until the car passed. Whoever hid the food fastest without spilling won the grand prize of not going to jail! We were all big winners! We did this mostly out of consideration, but we also didn't feel like being pulled over. When we got off the highway I found my reason for needing a 4wd SUV. We had two kilometers through the desert of rocks and a small, steep hill. Jeff did a great job driving up it, we didn't tip over. When we got to our "campsite" we found the beach below us and it looked like it has just been bombed. There were so many turtle nests we couldn't walk anywhere without feeling like we were going to crush some eggs. But, the little guys are durable, eventually we just ran around the beach. The turtles don't come til night so we swam in the sea, did a little body surfing, and drank some wine and had 
dinner. Our beach: We were the only ones here! Sara was pretending was was a turtle...
Around 6ish we started seeing some turtles playing and mating just off the coast, but they don't come in until night. After some delightful chicken and rice (a traditional Omani meal, the only other two are meat and rice, and dates) and terrific conversation we saw our first turtle coming in from the ocean and tossing sand. We first watched with binaculars to give a chance for the rest to come in. About an hour later the beach hosted about 10 turtles coming in, tossing sand, making decoy nests, and laying their eggs.
On the way down we were looking for other members of our group. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two tall silohettes, but I had to do a double take when I realized the shadows weren't at all human. Walking towards us without any slowing in their step were two camels. Jeff and I jumped up on the rocks. When they came to us, they looked at us and slowly turned around and walked back to where they came from. We both took a breath. We felt perfectly safe, but it was a little frightening, they are enormous animals! We were later told that we also need to hide food from camels all year round, not just during the holy month.
After our camel encounter we walked along the cliff (we were camping on top of this 3 meter cliff) and I saw what I thought was a little crab. Turns out it was my first baby turtle! It was so adorable! I swear, it would melt anyone's heart. They are so small and waddle up and down and up and down the craters to get to the sea. It seems like such a long journey for their size. Longer for some than others as they are sometimes snatched up by birds, foxes, or stepped on by humans or camels. Also, some are born with defects; one was born with one broken hind-leg and he just went in circles the whole night until he died. Very sad.
We walked onto the shore where we saw trail after trail leading from the sea to the beach! We watched a few dig their decoy nests and their real nests. We spent a couple of hourse walking up and down the beach watching the turtles. The little ones started really coming out of the sands and charged to the sea. At one point we saw about 5 or 6 within 5 meters of each other. The moon was half-full so we were able to see a lot, but they hate light, so we couldn't use flash.
--Late one digging and laying eggs
We eventually went to bed under the stars while the turtles continued all night laying eggs and returning to the sea; or for the hundreds of little ones, going home for the first time.
Greg and I watch as one of the last turtles makes its way back to the ocean.
At 5:30 we jumped up to watch the rest of the turtles and to see them in the daylight. The beach was full of evidence of war, birth, and death. We say thousands of little tracks by the babies, larger tracks by the adults, and a few fox and bird prints. We came across about a dozen baby turtle shells on the cliffs which the foxes left behind and there was one dead full grown turtle, we
couldn't tell why it was dead.--A little guy coming out of a nest!
But, there was still life! We were able to catch the tail-end of the exodus! We saw some little guys flopping around trying to get to the ocean. And some bigger guys struggling to get back after a long night. I can't imagine what it would be like to be born a turtle. Such a small animal at birth, having to make my way over mountains of sand and when I finally reach my new world, my new home, it greets me not with open arms, but with giant waves slamming down on me! The little ones would make their way down the shore and
suddenly be flipping down with the water and disappear to fight their next battle with all the fish! We were told only 1 in 1,000 turtles make it to adulthood.--Awww!
After taking some pictures in the daytime, we took a small hike to another beach, then a dip and headed home, exhausted, but very satisfied.
Ciao!
1 comment:
Baby turtles! I am glad that Arch isn't a turtle, fortunetly he has a better rate of survival, but I hope he is as adorable as a baby turtle. I love reading about your adventures, and your every day life. We miss you, and are so sorry we missed your call. Love you!
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