Douglas Easton Travel Blog - Douglas Easton Travel

February 02, 2009

Zighy Bay, Oman

For dramatic entrances, few places can match that of our current location on Oman's Musandam Peninsula. Located a two-hour drive from frenetic Dubai, Zighy Bay nestles quietly between the expansive Gulf of Oman and an imposing mountains better suited to grazing goats than two-legged creatures.

After passing through a checkpoint off the main highway and crossing the Omani border from the United Arab Emirates (a cursory glance at our passports and travelers are waved past), our small caravan of travelers found themselves leaving the paved road and and crossing a moonscape.

Wending our way across a rocky valley on a cleared dirt road, we soon arrived at the base of a high range and the entrance to the Zighy Bay Six Senses Resort. We began driving up the resort's steep, twisty dirt road and immediately were grateful to be driving 4 x 4 vehicles. After climbing hundreds of feet, we suddenly crested the summit and gazed down at the Gulf of Oman stretching without interruption to the horizon. Six hundred feet beneath us, the gentle azure waves of the gulf licked a stunning crescent bay adjoining the equally spectacular resort.

We parked on the mountain top, alit from our vehicles and admired the stupendous view below. Our local Omani guide, clad in a white djellaba, then produced an empty coconut shell and asked us each to pull out one of the ten small, dried oranges within. One lucky winner, we were told, would experience the entrance of a lifetime... the underside of the winner's dried orange would be covered with writing, while all the other nine would be blank.

As it turned out, there was no writing on John's orange, but the winner decided this was one opportunity to pass up, and John was offered the chance... he didn't hesitate to accept.

Parasailing is a sport that neither John nor Doug had previously tried and so, not knowing really what to expect, John quickly found himself helmeted, harnessed and secured to the expert Bulgarian instructor who explained the procedure. Then, without preamble, the wind picked up, the sail inflated, and John and the instructor ran toward the lip of the cliff. An instant later their feet parted from the ground and they were soaring with the birds high above our group!

For the next twenty minutes, John was treated to a thrill unlike anything in his experience. Floating above the cliffs and slicing across the sky toward the other side of the rocky valley below, John watched as our caravan of 4 x 4's slowly zagged down the mountain toward the sea and the honey-colored stone buildings and turquoise pools of Six Senses.

John gradually descended as well, eventually landing on the soft warm sands of Zighy Bay's beach. He didn't stop grinning all day!

The resort, stylish beyond all belief, elicited admiring oohs and aahs from everyone. Our group celebrated our journey's end by sitting down immediately to a sublime Arabic feast of grilled meats and fish, traditional Omani dishes which made all the foodies among us swoon with pleasure, excellent pastries and crisp chilled white wine... what an arrival!

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