Wadi Tiwi Waterfalls and the Drive of Death

 

So, I have been holding back on the goat pictures because really the goats deserve a post of their own. I couldn't help slipping this one in because that goat! That giant goat. I guess it's a different variety and word is they're very expensive but it was almost a horse or at the very least a donkey. Wherever you drive outside Muscat, there are goats running around. They walk across the road, they climb trees, they climb mountains. They come in all sorts of shapes and colors. Apparently they all belong to someone but how that system works I don't know.

Matt has been quite anxious to take me to the Wadi Tiwi waterfall pools. Since the turnoff to the Wadi was on the way home, he wanted to "just drive up there". I originally voted for Tiwi beach but decided to humor him. I mentioned in a previous post about my nameless phobia of cars breaking down. How about I name it strandedexpensivephobia. Well, this drive. THIS.DRIVE. This drive is not one I plan to repeat. I was quiet the entire way up but the kids and I smelled something like a burning smell at a couple of points of driving almost straight up and Matt was blissfully ignorant. There are hairpin turns and roads wide enough for 1 small car. There are spots that you would be in deep yoghurt if you came up on another car. Matt honked before each turn. Twice when he's come here locals have stopped him to be sure he could make it and asked if he's a good driver and if he has 4-wheel drive and offered to take him in their trucks. But I also see these tiny taxi cars up there. I don't know. I just know that after being up all night this stress was more than I cared to face. But the reality is that we made it. 

The idea is you drive to a spot, park somewhere and take these 100 stairs down to the waterfalls. Well, we stopped, and Matt asked a guy wrapped in his fabric skirt to point us to the direction of the waterfalls. Well, he told us to park and then proceeded to insist we follow him through this jungle. Walking along the faluj and through people's banana and palm trees and finally arriving at the waterfalls. He was appointing himself our guide and he did not leave us the entire time. He tried to help us, help the kids, point out what's safe etc and then insisted we follow him back to the car. In the end he also tried to insist that we pay him 20 OR($52). Matt insisted, like he had been trying to insist that we were ok and didn't need his help, that he didn't HAVE 20 OR but he would give him all 4 that he did have. In the end he tried and failed and went away disappointed but there wasn't really anything we could do. Now we know.

The wadi is enchanting. It's picturesque to an unreal degree. This is the top waterfall. Brigham is an absolute rock jumping junky and can't get enough. Sennia has even become a lover and jumped his same jump several times. 

Since most of these pictures are on the GoPro, I'm only getting slowly better at getting all those transfers working so I think a couple of these are from the boys hike and may be a repeat just to show the beauty. The unbelievable section is a couple of waterfalls down. I like to stay with Elise to feel comfortable on these adventures. She gets feeling confident after a while and does really worrisome climbs. Matt insisted that I go with Eli to see the lower falls though. I did and wow! I don't really have the pictures here. I'll look again and see if we took any because it was worth the worry. You have to kind of repel yourself down to get there, holding to a rope and walking down the boulders. But there is an enourmous overhang waterfall and a view of palms and green things growing that made the effort worth it. Especially since I'm never driving up there again and won't be able to hike the wadi.😳

She loves jumping but has become nervous about it since her first really amazing, really high jump where she slapped her legs so hard in Little Snake Canyon.  She finally got the courage to take this jump and before we left she THOUGHT she'd do the one above that Brigham, Sennia and the others did. She climbed up with Matt, she tried, and tried, and tried and we finally, probably 30 minutes later had to carefully pass her down to Eli in tears because she'd gotten herself terrified and she couldn't climb back down because the rock was so hot and she had dried out too much. It was a fun adventure but we were done with stress and all very tired and hungry by the time we finally drove down that Canyon. We had to stop twice to let the breaks cool down. 

Matt and the boys stumbled on this coffee shop on their way home last weekend. There are little coffee shops and restaurants everywhere here. Attached to mosques, gas stations, on their own. Hundreds of them. I have had the food, it wasn't great. But this one is delicious! It's a lucky find because the food at these shops is cheap. This falafel is some of the best I've had and the yogurt sauce makes it. Matt got a huge platter of falafel, 5 shwarma dishes, a huge order of french fries and mango juices with ice cream for everyone for I think $30.  Nothing like good fried food when you're absolutely starving.