WADI SHAB RIVERBANK HELLO<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n Leave your change of clothes and any other money and any extra phones and cameras in your car! Bring your day pack with water and snacks and water shoes, your car keys, and one photo-taking device, just in case your shit gets stolen you don’t want to lose all your phones. (It won’t get stolen though; everyone leaves all their stuff by the pools it’s fine.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sitting on the bank will be a group of locals. They’re in charge of the river crossing. So, you park on this (left) side of the river, but the attraction part is on the right side of the river, the canyon hike and the magic pools, so they bring you across the river in a quick little boat ride (you can see the quick little boats in the picture). If I recall accurately (lol watch me be wrong and pulling a total Josh’s college girlfriend saying “um I think I recall Hamlet<\/em> accurately” and BEING WRONG UGH), it was 1 Omani rial per person per way, and that’s all you pay for the whole shibang, there’s no ticket office or anything to go explore nature, so it was 4 rial total for this BEST DAY EVER. This parking side of the river has a food and drink stand with bottled drinks and snacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\nit also has stray local doggos which as always breaks my heart, but they seemed okay, and – as you can see – they have interesting friends to hang out with here, LIKE THAT GOAT. THAT’S A GOAT. JUST STRAIGHT CHILLIN WITH MY DOG FRIEND. bring snacks for the dogs maybe okay?<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nSo you pet the dog, you say yo what up to the goat (you gotta read the captions), and you cross the river in the little boat. Oh we’ve got an action shot:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHAT HO<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAnd then you’re on the other side (I’m on the east side, I’m on the west side!) ready to start the hike. It takes about 40 minutes to get to the interior canyon pools (do these phrases sound right), and the first 10 minutes or so are totally flat, just walking along the river and along the base part of the gorges. Then it starts to get freeeeakay! But in a completely doable way, not in a scary or difficult-to-maneuver way like inferior blogs would have you believe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
WOO HOO THIS PART’S FLAT I’M SWINGING MY ARMS SO JAUNTILY <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nRepping Wimbledon obvs (#goroger #gonadaltoo #goserena #isthis2005)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nDespite the high numbers of tourists who also have this on their to-do list, it didn’t feel overly crowded at all. In fact, while all the visitors on the day you go will likely convene at the main swimming part at the same time (as you can spend however much time you want there), the hike to the interior of the valley plus parts of the swimming holes (“I call it my swimming hole” – Mindy St. Clair in Oman) were empty for us, which added to how incredible it all was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the flat part of the hike through the canyons is over, you start climbing up and around the rocks, but none of it is very tricky or difficult if you are in average shape and don’t have mobility issues. The path is marked by painted black arrows on the larger rocks at times, but at other times the path is straightforward just by using common sense: “Hmm, there’s no arrow here. Do I go up this set of rocky stairs or DOWN INTO THE RAVINE?” Seriously there was never a moment where the right choice was unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
right? Like I’m going to go through the walkable parts of these rocks in the middle and not scramble up the enormous ones or try to climb up the SHEER CLIFF FACE<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nISN’T THIS COOL THAT’S ME I DID THIS<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nBecause it’s a wadi, some of the walking path surrounds water, as it’s traveling to the main part of the river you start at. Oh a good rule of thumb is to follow the black pipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\nhey those stairs don’t go anywhere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nYou do this climby rocky bit for about a half hour, and then, and then, and gentlemen and then, you are greeted with this: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
getting close I feel water!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nYAY YOU MADE IT!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\nYou come around a rocky bend and voila! You’ve reached the magic swimming pools inside the gorge! After a mostly solitary hike, you’ll be like ‘oh HERE’S all the people!’ As you can see, they are all leaving their bags and shoes along these side rocks, and you do the same. There are enough people – and enough tour guides who do this everyday telling you it’s fine – that you shouldn’t really worry about your belongings. Leave your packs, your hiking shoes, and your clothes (you have your bathing suit on already right?? this is where’d you would have to change), put on your water shoes (you really want water shoes for the rocky bottoms of these pools) and get to swimming for however long you have! \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\nHOORAY!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Since this is where the swimming begins, this is where the photos end, sadly. You’ll have to go to see what it’s like in the rest of the pools and the cave! (Or find someone who wisely took a waterproof GoPro. I’ll get one someday okay.) This first pool is fairly deep, as you can see. You can stand for some of it but you do need to know how to swim to go any farther. The second pool is mostly walking through shallow water, which is why you want to bring those water shoes – it’s all tiny rocks which really hurt our soft Western feet (as a guide in Burma once told us we had. She wasn’t wrong.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The third pool is the magic wonder shiz, though. It’s quite deep – you have to swim – but you are swimming to a cave! There’s a small hole that might be scary if you have claustrophobia or ya know any run of the mill fear of drowning, but you swim through the hole and then you are in the cave with a waterfall! It’s so freaking cool. There are some ledges and hanging rock bits around the cave to hang on to when you need a rest, so don’t worry about getting tired out. If you want the opposite of a rest, there are ropes hanging down the rocks of the waterfall, so some absolutely bonkers adventure seekers among you can try your best to climb up it, land on the slippery rocks up top with the water gushing over them, and jump off into the pool of the cave. Someone tried this while I was there and it seemed terrifying and painful, so, yeah. This guy also had his phone with him in a ziplock bag. Fun fact, he left Wadi Shab with a totally forked phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point, we were completely alone in that cave, which sounds kind of scary but we knew more people would be swimming in soon. But during that time, it was one of those ‘holy crap are we really here experiencing this?’ kinds of moments. It’s absolutely wonderful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you’re done (be mindful of the opening hours so you don’t miss the last boats!), you do it all in reverse, say goodbye to the animals, pee again, and – if you’ve planned your day properly – you drive a short distance to the next swimming adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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BIMMAH SINKHOLE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAbout a 20 minute drive from Wadi Shab is the Bimmah Sinkhole, a water-filled sinkhole by definition but a shimmering turquoise underground lake by mine. It’s back towards Muscat, which is perfect. It’s best to hit the sinkhole after Wadi Shab, on the way back to Muscat, since you’ll already be in your wet bathing suit, rather than on the way from Muscat, since if you swim in the sinkhole first you’ll have to do the Wadi Shab hike all wet both ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fun fact: the Bimmah Sinkhole ALSO HAS A TOILET! What is this amazing new world! It’s also in a sort of park looking jawn, with children’s playground equipment randomly here and there. There is fencing around the top of the sinkhole so lots of people will be taking pictures of the swimmers below. When you’re ready, you leave all your stuff in the car this time (all of it; there’s really nowhere to put anything), climb down the stairs and get in that water! It’s such a beautiful place to swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt might not look like much from here but it’s wonderful. Also I don’t edit my photos to lie to you about what you are going to get when you are there, because I value HONESTY <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe water was filled with those little biting fish which was funny, if weird. Despite being pretty well-known and touristed, the pool itself was never too crowded.There were all these little nooks and crannies in the rocks to explore, like little caves and enclaves. It was a lovely swim! <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nthe sign says “Muscat municipality is not responsible to what may happen as the result of swimming in the sinkhole”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSo that’s my favorite day in Oman! We got back to Muscat tired but happy, and ready for an amazing dinner at my favorite restaurant in Muscat: a falafel stand called Arax. More on that in the next travel post, all about the food and hotels in Muscat (including our own little resort stay! (yes I talked shit about staying in resorts but I mean ONLY staying in resorts, clearly we did all the things first!)).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can’t even begin to explain how nervous I was to trek into Wadi Shab. Before our Oman trip, we’d found a very detailed blog post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-d1"],"yoast_head":"\n
Wadi Shab is Gorges: My Favorite Place in Oman (+ Bimmah Sinkhole!) - Laughfrodisiac<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n