Vol 68 What I've Been Up to Since Turkey & Morocco

Ok, Ok! Stop complaining everyone! I'll get back to blogging. Sheesh. Take a couple of months off and you get so much grumbling....

I'm going to do a quick run down of what I've been up to since I got back from Turkey and Morocco. Mostly with photos. Gotta make it quick- I have new adventures to report on.

Mid-October 2007

Mahfoodh and I drove down to Quoriat. Not much to see in the town but there was a really pretty beach.

Mahfoodh goofing around.

Quoriat is FULL of goats, just wandering the streets.



And the beaches. Go figure.

November 2007

My first chance to host a CouchSurfer came at the tail end of November. Angie hails from Scotland but she lives in Australia. She was a great guest! We had a blast. So much so she's coming back in April.

We borrowed an SUV and went wadi-bashing. What's wadi-bashing? Well, a wadi is a dry river bed (though it doesn't stay dry when it rains). People take their SUV's and drive up the river bed, which has been somewhat graded.

Along the way the scenery is spectacular. At times the going is pretty good. Like a regular gravel road. At other times the road narrows to a track barely wide enough for your tires then hairpins around a corner on a ridiculously steep slant. It is usually at this point we would meet a car coming the other way. Yikes! I started off driving but in no time figured out I was too big a chicken for the job. Angie happily took over and I happily let her.

Every now and then we saw a little village tucked in.

Angie and I chose Wadi Bani Auf because it has a couple of great hikes in it. This photo is of Snake Gorge. No Mom, it's not because there are snakes there. It's because the crevice you hike through snakes through the canyon. Occasionally you are forced to swim if you want to continue the hike. This is as far as we got due to our improper footwear.

Angie snapped this one of me working hard on the hike.

We also passed small farms.

At the top of the wadi there is a really great hike through a gorge that pops out at this sweet village. 2 teenage boys guided us through the gorge into the village, practicing their English along the way.

Once into the village they gave us water from their home that tasted soooo good. Must have been mountain spring water.

Angie snapped this photo of me in the village. These little boys had been following us around. This is one of my favorite photos from Oman. As I said, it was my first time wadi-bashing but it sure won't be my last!

I was invited to the American Marine ball. Katie and I had our dresses made for super-cheap. I LOVE this dress. It flows like water when I walk.

We were feeling too pretty- had to mess it up.....

I hosted my second CouchSurfer, Marlon for 5 nights.

The first night his beautiful sister, Bonita (shown here lounging in the lobby of the Chedi Hotel), stayed as well. She lives in Dubai and invited me to come visit anytime. Marlon and Bonita are from the Dutch Antilles Islands in the Caribbean so they have beautiful accents. Super nice people.

We went out to lunch with Mahfoodh and I got this quintessential photo of him. He really ought to just tape his phone to his head, he's on it so much.

December 2007

I went home for Christmas. Spent half my time in WA State and the other half in BC with my family. In early December I dropped my camera one too many times and it went on the fritz. It still worked but only kind of. It changed the colors of everything. Sigh. So I'm borrowing my Sister-in-law, my sister and my Mom's photos from Christmas.

Here's a nice photo my sister-in-law, Leanne, took of her and my brother, Russ' kids.

Lane came home with me for the first time since our divorce. It was really great having him there after a 5 or 6 year absence. He brought an Xbox game with him- Rock Band. We combined it with the extra guitar my brother's kids had for Guitar Hero and soon we were rocking the house. All the kids got involved. Plus the adults. I know I look grumpy in this photo but they kept playing songs that were way too hard for me and I was concentrating like crazy. An obsessively fun time.

Christmas morning we awoke to this silly sight. My sister had swapped out my regular stocking and replaced it with this jumbo one.

Yay!!!!! All for me!!!!!

I gave my nieces Jessie and Chloe and my sister, Michele an Omani style hair clip. In Oman, the bigger the better when it comes to hair accessories.

I wouldn't normally bore you with a "what I got for Christmas" story but for this one thing I must tell. First a bit of info. I sleep with a stuffed animal and I'm not embarrassed about it. I have since I was a kid. My hand has grown accustomed to having something to hold onto when I sleep. The men in my life have provided the stuffies. But, as you all know, I have no man in my life so I've just continued sleeping with the puppy that Buck gave me when we were together.

Before I moved to Oman my sister, her daughter, Chloe and I were in a mall and I looked briefly for a stuffie I could buy myself to replace Puppy but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't buy my own stuffie.

In our family we all buy gifts for the children but they are not supposed to buy for us. This Christmas I was presented with a gift from Chloe. A rather large gift. "Hmmmm......" I said, "this is odd...."

My sister snapped this photo at the moment I realized what it was. This moment was immediately followed by......

....this moment. I hadn't even opened it yet and I was already tearing up a little.

It was a Build-a-Bear, which if you don't know, is a stuffed animal that the kids help to make. They pick out the body, put a heart in it, help to stuff it, then bathe it and pick out an outfit for it.

The kids in my family are big on Build-a-Bears, as you can see. Mine is a polar bear named Nanuk, to remind me of Canada. Chloe saved her allowance for 3 months to pay for him. She even paid extra to put a little sound box in him. When I squeeze his paw I hear her voice saying "We love you Auntie Susan".

Puppy has been retired and Nanuk and I are best friends.

January 2008

Next CouchSurfers to visit were David, from the US and his wife Syy, from Thailand. They were tons of fun too.


They rented a Hummer and we went wadi-bashing at Wadi Tiwi.

When we reached the top we walked to a tiny village and started chatting with some guys who could barely speak English. They brought us Omani coffee and dates to snack on. The guy on the left with a t-shirt on his head invited me into his home. It was very similar to the cave homes in Morocco. It was partially dug into the mountain and plastered over. It was spotlessly clean and soooooo cool. These photos all look a little funky because of my dropped camera. I repaired them as best I could with my photo software. You should have seen them before!

After David and Syy 2 ladies from Las Vegas came. Deborah and Loretta. They both work in the airline industry so they get super-cheap tickets all over the place. They were about my age and a total kick in the pants! They only stayed 2 days but we packed a lot in. They were so nice and so much fun I was sad to see them go. I have no photos of them as my camera was just to crappy to use.

February 2008

This is Yonas, a German CouchSurfer who came to our first Muscat CouchSurfer meeting and since he had no host I took him in. He was really nice too. He emailed me this photo he took when I dropped him at the airport.

Things keep toodleing along at work. Katie, our office manager took a job at the American Embassy that is more in line with what she studied for. I'm happy for her and I miss her at work. Especially since I'm doing a lot of her job now in addition to mine, including recruiting a new receptionist, a new general dentist and a new assistant.

That about wraps up the update through early February. My sister came to visit me in mid-Feb for 2 1/2 weeks, which I had off. Stay tuned for those stories......