a secret arabian adventure part one

I apologize for my extended spell of laziness with regards to posting on this blog, however I work in one of those high-stress professions where most of my days I spend a great deal of time fighting with fellow employees, bosses and the media.

The best part of my work is the weekend, when I turn my phone off and use the time to unwind. Most weekends for me are spent in the desert of Ajman, on the coast of Fujairah or in the mountains of Khor Fakkan (hence my nickname Nomaadic). The past weekend was slightly different from my usual schedule as we decided to go mountain climbing and hunting in an extremely remote part of Khor Fakkan.

When I recieved the call last Thursday night asking whether I wanted to explore a new area of Khor Fakkan, I jumped at the idea. I am no stranger to rock climbing the deep and barren wadies of the country side; however this expedition was somewhat different. My best friend Ahmed, a seasoned Emirati army officer, his brother Yassim and a third friend Mohamed are used too scaling cliff walls freehand and at extremely high altitudes, however for me, this experience would be a new one.

Early Friday afternoon, prior to beginning our ascent and after eating a large meal in the shade of our Fortuner, we checked our rifles and began a three hour trek through a deep valley and highly inhospitable valley that was completly littered with rocks of all sizes. Yassim's tales of being confronted by a pack of mountain tigers on a previous trip were not paid attention to until we reached approximately 400 hundred feet up and realized that there would be no where to run, if, we were confronted by at least one carnivorous animal.



Yet our initial ascent was comparably easy, even after walking for three hours through an extremely rocky wadi. However the higher we reached the windier it became and soon our trek came to a notorious point, where several animals and people had been known to have fallen to their deaths in very recent times. Still the cathartic nature of the expedition overwhelmed the fear of dieing and we proceeded to the top.

After two hours of climbing, and only one casualty (Yassim became extremely sick and spent a good fifteen minutes vomiting, but he still survived:-p) we reached an extremely steep precipice characterized by loose and broken rock and had to halt our journey. Only 300 meters from the top, we had to travel back down 100 meters and circle our way around the mountain to avoid the broken rock and the likelihood of slipping to an early death in an avalanche. (All of this I may add, without any climbing equipment whatsoever.)

With the assistance of some Bedu's we eventually managed to negotiate our way to the top of the mountain and was greeted with a site that could only be called an oasis. The whole area owned by one family was green, vast and sublime. No one was there accept the Sheikh of the area, his nephew, his cousin Salim (who was also our guide and fifth member of our team) and a handful of Pakistani farmers and laborers.



The mountain plateau covering over 10 miles, used to accommodate several family units up until the early Nineties, with their small huts scattered right across the area; however since then it has become deserted and today is only used during the winter as a holiday getaway for the men. It made me wonder how old women and young children managed to live up here in the past as the entire area is totally isolated from the rest of the country and traveling down and up these mountains is virtually impossible for anyone who is not in peak health.

The area has no electricity, no pluming and none of the creature comforts most people cannot get by without in the UAE and thus is truly another world where literally only the toughest can survive there - for any extended period of time. We were only there for two days and in that time garnered an appreciation for the sloppy infrastructure those of us living in Sharjah and Ajman have had to put up with on a daily basis. Here, when I asked Salim if there were any toilet facilities around, even a makeshift one, his reply was 'The whole area is your hamam, just be discreet, very clean and very considerate when you are doing your business.'



Life up there had not changed in over a millennia and I was pleased when I heard that when one of the Qassimies had earlier offered to buy the whole mountain area with the ambition of establishing a resort or ultra plush private getaway, its Sheikh said 'no'. This part of Khor Fakkan is a living time capsule, away and completely isolated from everything, including tourists and adventure travellors. Most expats and even many Emiraties have not even began to scratch the surface when it comes to exploring the wonders of the UAE.

It was Maghreb (sunset) by the time we settled so after we prayed we decided to eat. With nothing but a full moon lighting the entire area, the setting was as thematically romantic as any Hollywood movie could ever try to reproduce. Deciding that it was best that we all get an early night... the next morning hunting was on the cards.

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