Well. We have just arrived in the hottest week of our life! Can you imagine living in 45 degrees (Celsius) temperature? We had to experience that for a week! We arrived in Muscat the capital of Oman via a bus from Dubai. When we arrived it was like 10pm. And Jay didn't have anything booked or any cash (well barely, the equivalent of $18 cdn, if that counts!?) on him. So we walked around and went into a hotel close to the bus station. It wasn't very good but we managed to get an ok sleep and a room without Jay paying anything until the next day. In the morning we went to a City Center Mall (they're EVERYWHERE in the Middle East) with our bags and ate from a Carrefour (like Loblaws in Toronto). We ate bread and cheese, but I had Chicken Tikka with rice (Indian food!) so I didn't have to have the bread and cheese! While Jay was looking for a place to stay for the next two nights in Muscat on his iphone (he finally got a SIM card) Max and I went into a nearby bookstore. I found Percy Jacksons Greek Heroes (I haven't read it or Demigod Diaries) and read like 50 pages before we had to go. We still haven't seen the movie, Civil War! I'm hoping we get to see it soon, but if not we can watch it with the Powells in France which would probably be more fun than watching it without them. It turns out Jay had booked a Best Western hotel so we drove there in our rental car (Thrifty) and I did math (PAGE 283/349!!!) while Max and Jay did Blogs. We also did a VO (Voice Over) for Savvy and that was the last Savvy thing I'm gonna do. After I'm done writing this Blog I'll write about We Are Savvy!! It's one of the most exciting things I've done...stay tuned!
At about 4pm we headed out to go to a park and drove around for like 2hrs for a 20 minute trip! Lotsa U-Turns...mostly illegal...you get the picture! When we finally made it there was this big white thing atop a hill close to the park and so naturally we wanted to check it out! When we got near it we saw that the passage was blocked for some reason. So when we headed down we passed this guy selling popcorn for .5 Reals (1OMR=$3CAD!!) and Max and I each got a bag. Max got caramel and I got regular (I DESPISE caramel) and let me tell you...it was the BEST popcorn I've ever had! Better even than movie theatre popcorn! We played on the equipment for a couple of hours and then got in the car and made it back to our hotel in half an hour. One thing I think should happen is in Old Toronto like Old Muscat there should be a limit on building height up to the eighth floor. Pause! I'm gonna skip he next day in Muscat because we didn't do anything.
So we woke up and drove to a place called Nizwa and by the time we got there it was SUPER LATE. We stayed at a place called The Golden Tulip. The next day we had to wake up pretty early because we were going to a souk (market) at 7am that the Spanish people we met in Ella, Sri Lanka said is really good! When we got there it was goat central! There were like 50 guys walking around in a circle with goats on leashes and people would pull them aside and ask their price! It was really chaotic but also really cool! I REALLY really recommend it! We also visited the fish and craft souks! Max was really drawn to the bird/chicken souk because he found some bunnies! After we went back to The Golden Tulip we ate breakfast and then we swam in the pool and hung around for the rest of the day!
We went to the Grand Canyon of Oman the next day and it was HUGE! I also got a key ring of a pattern made out of goat wool. I'm needing the key ring and I also have a mini Burj Khalifa for my key ring! The Grand Canyon of Oman is a long drive up and the road is crazy steep so watch out! Once we got back to the hotel we hung out in the pool and that's pretty much all we did for the next two nights. That and math of course.
On our fourth day at The Golden Tulip we left and headed down towards Ras Jinz which is a turtle reserve! We got there at 11pm so we were all tired out and Max had puked like 20 times! Uhhhhh! We had to wake up at 3:15 am in the morning to see the turtles come and lay there eggs so Jay suggested just going himself and taking pictures for us. Here was my answer: "NO!" because I wanted to see the turtles too! So at 4am we went down to Ras Jinz Turtle Reserve and saw like 5-10 turtles! It was CRAZY GOOD!!!! Instead of being in a group of 30 (Like in Tortuguera, Costa Rica) we were by ourselves (with a guide of course) and so we could go wherever on the beach we wanted to! Our guide was a local and also really well informed so we learned a lot and it was really funny how once the sun appeared about 100-ish crabs were crawling around near the water hoping to catch some turtles. Max and I scared them into the ocean to help protect the turtles and upon asking the guide why they didn't help the baby turtles get into the ocean he said "Here we leave everything up to nature. If we were to help the baby turtles get into the ocean that would be disrupting nature's balance and there wouldn't be enough food to go around." He also said "Sometimes during the climax of the turtle hatching season you can see crabs holding a turtle in each claw!" He told us that only 1 or 2 out of 1000 baby turtles make it to adulthood because they have to worry about everything from seagulls to small fish. Even though this number may seem bleak our guide said that the number of turtles on the beach was increasing. After the turtles we drove back down to Muscat and stayed at a nice place near the airport. Then at 4:30am we headed out of Oman on Gulf Air (movie screens!) on the way to Bahrain (the home of Gulf Air) and then to Jordan!
Sullivan
P.S. All of my friends please get Slither.io on the App Store especially Hudson Sawyer and Zuzu because Max and I will play it with you then! My user-tag is DONT EAT MEH if you ever come across me...!