18.11. Wadi Damm, Beehive tombs Al Ayn, As Sulayf and Hebrew

I wake up around 5 o'clock in the morning, there is a beautiful starry sky above the river, and the Big Dipper, which we search for in vain in the evening, is standing on the reins in a position in which it cannot be seen here. I would like to take a picture of it, but I still want to sleep. In the morning we pack and go on a trip to the Wádi Damm canyon. The character of the canyon is completely different from what we have seen in other canyons, the walls are rocky, but there are distinct terraces that you can walk on. At first you can walk along the water, but then it flows more and more often between the rocks, so we walk along the rocks and stony shores. Finally, we come to a beautiful lake with a waterfall, where we swim.

On the way back, I walk the last part of the way from the dam to the falaja, there is an Omani family under the overhang, the children cowardly jump off the falaja earlier so that they don't have to pass them, it's stupid to me, so I continue and greet them. So I become a victim of Omani hospitality, I immediately receive coffee, lots of dates, papaya, bananas, they ask if I've had breakfast yet and if I say yes, then they say I can have lunch. The only thing that saves me is saying that I have to see my family. I try to at least reduce the amount of dates they give me, but they are adamant "Oman full of dates". In addition to fruit, I also get a traditional Omani dessert, I guess it is made of date paste, spices and nuts. At the car, we share the supply with a pair of Czech tourists who we met in the wadi and they explain to us that yesterday they passed an Omani wedding and were also invited as special guests and brought them so much food that it was impossible to eat it.

Today we want to head south, but there are still a few points of interest. Just a little further in the same valley, there is a group of beehive tombs dated to the Bronze Age 3000 years BC (Beehive tombs Al Ayn) on a small hill. We got this place and the next stop as a tip from Tomáš (the former head of the section where we used to go), the place is on the Unesco list, but it doesn't have much advertising or good access.

After a short stop, we continue to Ibri, on its edge are the ruins of the clay castle As Sulayf. We get off at the parking lot and immediately a local Omani appears by the car, waits for us and immediately leads us to the complex and starts explaining in bad English. We're a bit embarrassed about it, but we have no choice anyway. He still wants to take my camera and take pictures of us without exaggeration with absolutely everything. We don't like that, so after he greases the lens with my fingers, I don't lend him the camera anymore and we only take pictures of children (and only occasionally, otherwise we would still be there today). We walk through the castle grounds and at the main gate he explains that the castle closes at 2:30 p.m. and doesn't open until 7:30 a.m. in the morning. But that outside of this time... one goes in through that hole in the tower. We climb through a hole, a tower and at the end there is a big step where we have to pull the children up. I wonder if the pensioners who travel here the most also come here. We're starting to be really glad he caught us because we wouldn't have gotten here otherwise. The castle is under reconstruction, some places have already been repaired and illuminated, but a lot of work still awaits them here. Our guide also worked on repairs here. He obviously knows it well here, he shows us every inscription carved on the stone, every bat and explains what it was used for. And he makes us take pictures of everything :-D, he has exactly selected places from which to take pictures. However, if we don't want to take pictures of everything, he doesn't take it personally, he says welcome! and we move on. We are at the castle for over an hour, it gets dark again when we arrive at the parking lot, we ask the guide how much he wants, he says 10 OMR, we are all satisfied.

We will rinse the children a little from the camping shower, put on clean clothes and go to the desert for the night, we have to cross about 900 km, so we will go as far as we can and then we will camp. We don't want to waste time cooking, so we think about where to get something to eat. We already had the popular trio of rolls, laban, and ice cream for lunch, and the children don't eat much other local food (they even put spices in the packaging of the chicken strips). Finally we discover a pizza place and a simple Margarita saves it.

The kids fall asleep almost immediately and we drive along the straight road imagining the desert in the dark. Somewhere before the halfway point around midnight, we turn onto a side road (sand) perpendicular to the main road and after a few km we pitch our tents right next to the road. Nothing passed by all night.