Edges of the Rub al Khali, between romance and reality
How do you hold emptiness? Try wandering through the edges of the much-touted Rub al Khali, the Empty Quarter, and then go further. In it you will find sand as fine as powder, and perhaps a ravaged, rusted bedstead sitting in a ghost village of two abandoned houses, and the desert petrol station 40km before the road of dust ends in sand.
Everyone knows of the Rub al Khali, a massive stretch of grandeur that spills across countries, its edges gracing the western borders of Oman. But the Empty Quarter is so large it is more an idea than something tangible, and reality will bring you trudging through a land so flat that you can see from horizon to horizon, from one emptiness to another. Such blank space is fertile ground for
the most romantic of stories �nothing less could save it from anonymity. Like all good stories, this one begins with sweeping
riches and ends in tragedy. It all began in 1984, when the Space Shuttle Challenger swept over the Persian Gulf taking pictures that revealed age-old tracks along the ancient frankincense trade route. These trails dated back to 2800�00bc, and the point at which some of them met was found to be the lost city of Ubar. The city is
mentioned in venerable records as growing fabulously wealthy by virtue of its strategic location between the coast and the interior
population centres of the Middle and Near East. Though largely
forgotten in later history books, it inspired the Western imagination through the classic Thousand and One Nights.
Such legend could only have been cemented by catastrophe, and Ubar fell as hard as it had risen high. Ubar’s selling point was its large underground cavern of water, invaluable to the camel caravans then crossing the desert. But the city damned itself as it grew, for as people drank its underground reserves the water table fell, and the limestone roof and walls were left dry without support. They
eventually collapsed, perhaps around 300�00ad, covering the water source and destroying the city. The romance began when Ubar was buried under the desert, becoming what T E Lawrence called the ‘Atlantis of the Sands�
The archaeological site, touted by tour operators across Dhofar,
is pure heartbreak. The one-room museum is, believe it or not, a wooden shack nailed together, with some maps tacked to the wall, photos of happy tourists grinning atop camels, and a few dusty
artefacts on the floor. There’s also a leather Bedouin crib for some obscure reason, because we’re sure it doesn’t date back several thousand years. Leave behind the shanty and walk on to the actual site. You’ll find a couple of mounds of ancient construction sticking out, flanked by a metal signboard and what appears to be a collection of electricity meters. It gets marginally better beyond, where you can gaze into what is left of the tank, now accessible by stairs (but the smell of must and rot will soon drive you up again).
These ruins are now in the backyards of Shisr, a dusty town slightly northwest of Thumrayt, filled with newly constructed dwellings and tracks that lead into the desert. That’s where our real adventure starts, with dirt roads heading invitingly north and west, deeper into desert, towards borders. Such roads eventually end in the dunes, but fainter tracks continue onwards. Our road ended in the middle of nowhere, at the abandoned remains of a mosque, a water pump room, and, most surreal of all, a tourist camp.
The camp, officially called ‘Empty Quarter Comps� was deserted, still propped up within the remains of bamboo walls, a lurid sign outside harping on about the romance of the lost city, the eyes of a beautiful woman looking at you through purple haze over the dunes. There must have been a caretaker somewhere, for there were
several empty bottles and a bag of uncooked rice on the floor, and the remains of what must have once been a white goat, if the tail and hoof were anything to go by.
Further exploration of the area turned up a bed, all naked springs and coils, sitting on a mound of desert ground, looking rather
evocative with the desert blurring into hazy sky in the distance. Later, 40km short of the end of another road leading nowhere in particular, we found more desert furniture standing against the same landscape of wide-open possibilities. Here, three Pakistanis held the fort: one in charge of an automotive workshop, complete with a bathtub outside; another manning the foodstuff counter and two-table restaurant; the third operating the fuel depot, with its two tanks and lone hose. Their quarters were behind, dominated by a massive satellite dish that dwarfed a storeroom and a lorry brought in for repairs. A few steps away was a single-room mosque, and after that just a ravaged, unreadable road sign between us and the horizon.
But it is here that you might find the best that the Quarter has to offer, where the desert dwellers and travellers meet and exchange stories over a cup of chai, a tank full of petrol and some cola. The foodstuff manager, from Islamabad, has spent five years at this place, selling RO10�0 worth of provisions a day, depending on what sort of day it is. This one was hot and hazy, and we were
sitting in front of a magnificent bank of sand, with the most amazing collection of pebbles spread out before us, the only tangible things in an unending landscape of nothingness. Everything else was just shifting sand, the occasional sprout of a lone tuft of grassy leaves, and haze. There is no shade in the Ramlat Hashman: the plants are too small, the dunes too flat, and the rocks little more than pebbles. The largest object was our own car, but at noon it offered only a little shade. So if you want to wait for the good light, you have to turn off the engine, open all the doors and windows, fold the back seats forward and lie half comatose for the duration of the afternoon. The thermometer, when put out on the ground, shot its needle right off the chart, beyond 50ºC �you wouldn’t last very long on bare feet.
Later, as the afternoon turns into evening, the light improves and it is cool enough to look for stones �the most unusual are in shades of pink and deep red. The desert night is infinitely more pleasant than the day, and it makes perfect sense to camp out here when
visiting the plains further south during the khareef.
Kilometre readings
Zero your odometer at the Salalah airport roundabout, and
head towards Thumrayt and Muscat
77.6km Thumrayt. Proceed straight through, towards Muscat 113km A’Saffa chicken plant turnoff. Proceed straight down the highway 118km Turn left, towards Shisr 160km Turn right for a diversion to the farms. You can have a look
at the livestock here, or get help in an emergency. 171.6km Rejoin road, turn right 181km Shisr/Ubar. Stop here to look at the archaeological dig and
the museum shack. Proceed further on towards the wadi with
our GPS readings 188km Turn right to al Khda (the road sign indicates it is 23km away) 189km Sand dunes on your right, peppered with interesting stones 211.6km Mosque at Al Khda. Abandoned buildings, tourist camp.
End of the road. Retrace your way back from where you came,
towards Shisr 240.6km The lone petrol pump, with a workshop and a restaurant
GPS, UTM
Turn left from the highway to Shisr
40 Q 0183712, 1986811
Elevation 357m
Ask the Sub Aqua Dive Centre for help in your travels through the Empty Quarter �and other areas of Dhofar, from the seas off Mirbat to the mountains at the edges.
You can find them at The Hilton, on 92471073 and 92740198.
We also list them in The Guide.
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