Road to Oman

The drive from Dubai west to Oman starts in the desert, an ugly flat scrub punctuated by occasional oil derricks. But before long, the mountains.

The mountains are beautiful but bleak – until you pull over to fix your seat belt and you notice tiny green nurseries are hidden in the curves of the road, invisible to passing cars. This little green river widened into a stream of palm trees – a date farm – but I couldn’t get a good picture of the palms.

These pictures were taken in Fujeirah province, in north central UAE. The land is mostly empty, but in the middle of the mountains the path is interrupted by a roadside souk – a row of rug dealers, grocers and crafts shops.

“Special discount!” this guy kept shouting, clutching my arm. He was very persistent, and in the end, he sold me a rug. I dickered him down to half his asking price, though I was later told that I still got screwed.

I don’t usually like taking pictures of people directly. But this Afghani guy insisted. The guy is a natural. He looks like he’s never seen a camera before – but he was posing. He was strutting his stuff, I swear to you. He kept asking me to bring him back a copy of the picture. When I told him that it was a picture for the computer only, he looked thoughtful for a second, then he smiled and doubled his insistence. He said something sort of unintelligible, but I think it had to do with him asking me for advertising. So, consider this my end of the bargain: If you’re ever on the road through Fujeirah province, buy a rug from this man.

So much haggling left us hungry. Lunch was some dates and a corn on the cob, grilled with salt and lemon. I tell you this: I never truly ate corn until this weekend. My eyes rolled back in my head and the lemon juice dripped down my chin. And when I finished eating my dates, I spit my seeds on the ground like a hick. I didn’t even feel like a jackass, as I would have in America.

Here’s where they make the corn:

It was a Friday afternoon – the Muslim Sunday. We drove through lots of little towns, each with a mosque prominent at its center. We drove through one little town just as prayers were letting out – in a town small enough to drive through in five minutes, we saw what looked like thousands of people flooding from the mosque’s gates.

Tomorrow: the fabulous art of the Middle Eastern roundabout…