Jiggity-Jig
Safe and sound we made it "home again, home again..." from the desert. From Nizwa we took an adventurous road up Jebel Shams and had a fantastic hike along a gorge to rival the grand canyon. We drove to the edge of the empty quarter and spent one night in a tourist camp (disneyland in the desert, but the dung beetles were real); then drove back to the coast and the town of Sur. One last 4x4-rental-justifying drive up the coast brought us back to Muscat. And there we treated ourselves to a night at the brand new Shangri-La resort in Muscat (thanks to special opening prices). It was a nice way to emerge from our dusty, sandy, buggy previous few days and we made the most of it (see below).
Our long flight home was punctuated by a stopover in London. Janet likes to fly BA and to shop in Heathrow. And the BA lounge make the itinerary worth it in itself. They have hot showers, all kinds of food and Johnnie Walker Blue at the self-service bar.
For once the buses cooperated to bring us home from Charles de Gaul airport - or appeared to be doing so. We caught the Air France shuttle without difficulty for once, and hopped from it directly onto our local bus. Janet commented on the unusual good fortune, and jinxed it: a mile and a half from home our bus stopped at a barrier marking the route of the Paris marathon. I don't know who was still running at four in the afternoon but the police prevented us from proceeding (although many motorists drove blithely under the tape). We wound up waiting for most of half an hour, observing in our fellow passengers a mixture of Gallic indifference and irate posturing. Eventually we continued via a detour on the pérephérique, which caused us to have to walk an additional quarter mile home with our luggage.
We had a utterly terrific time and are plotting our return, but we, with Emma, are very happy to be home. (I'll post more of our pictures from the trip on my site - but they are in line behind the wedding pictures.)
posted 9.4.06
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