In the US if you need cold medicine you'd go to the pharmacy (or the grocery store or gas station or pretty much anywhere) and peruse the cold medicine aisle, which would probably have 15+ types of cold medicine. Here, apparently you can only get medicine at a pharmacy and, at least as far as I've noticed, pharmacies are pretty much only in the malls. And for the month of Ramadan, the malls all have strange hours, so the first challenge was actually getting to a pharmacy. The pharmacies here are all really small and there's no perusing involved -- you go up to the pharmacist and tell him what you need and he hands you something. And cold medicine here comes in two types -- drowsy and non-drowsy. So once I had the non-drowsy medicine in hand, I went in search of soup.
Again, back in the US, you could go to the grocery store and find literally hundreds of types of canned, refrigerated or boxed soup. Here I found Cup O Soup and exactly two types of canned soup -- lentil (which is white here, not green) and tomato. Neither exactly screamed "I have a cold and need to feel better soon", but I guess they were at least hot.
And the worst part has been the tissues. Since there's no Puffs Plus with Aloe here (or anything even remotely soft), I've been blowing my nose for over a week with the tissue equivalent of sandpaper. By Friday my nose was a giant red scab that bled a little every time I blew my nose.
So being sick here left a lot to be desired, but yesterday I was reminded of how much I love it here by a bit of adventuring. I had a friend visiting from the US so, despite being ill, we set off into the desert to see two of Oman's most famous sights - the Bimmah Sinkhole and Wadi Shab.
About an hour and a half outside of Muscat is the Bimmah Sinkhole, which is a naturally occurring sinkhole that you can swim in. It's fed by a small hole from the ocean, so it's a saltwater pool that manages to remain fresh and cool even in the summer. There were about six other people there while we were there, but we were frankly in a rush to get on to Wadi Shab, so we didn't spend very long at the sinkhole.
About another fifteen minutes further into the desert is Wadi Shab, which was a bit like showing up on the set of an Indiana Jones movie. Wadi means "valley" in Arabic, though many of the desert valleys also turn into oases since water coming down from the mountains collects in the valleys and creates pools of water and greenery in the desert. Here's a few of my favorite shots of Wadi Shab:
This is the view as you first arrive. For 1 Omani Rial, a local will take you in a boat from the parking lot across the water to the start of the hike.
The pictures don't do it justice, but the water was crystal clear blue and the rocky mountains on either side were pretty spectacular. The trip was about 50% walking (or scampering across boulders) and 50% swimming, though apparently in winter there's much more water and there's a lot more swimming involved.
After about an hour of walking/swimming/scampering, you reach a small cave. You have to swim through a tiny crack in the cave, but when you do you're met with a pretty awesome waterfall that you can climb up and jump off. I was pretty happy to take in the scenery, so no jumping for me, though swimming through the crack in the cave was definitely an experience.
Despite feeling a little under the weather, it was so nice to finally get to see some of Oman's spectacular scenery, especially since I could show it off to one of my friends from back home!
Stay tuned, I promise I'll start writing more now that I'm not traveling/sick/entertaining friends.
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