Wild Arabia

Known as one of the most authentic countries on the Arabian Peninsula, Oman has an even wilder side still – head south to Salalah for wonderful wadis, beautiful birds and baobab forests…

- Phoebe Smith

Teetering on the edge of a chasm, the darkness echoing below my feet, I thought I was going to fall. Around me, trees had squeezed their way out of every rocky crevice and stretched outwards and upwards, desperately hoping to catch the sun’s rays. Yet I remained deep in the shadows.

“Stay where you are,” whispered my guide, Justin Halls. I didn’t dare move an inch. Then it happened.

First, a single shrill cry from a fan-tailed raven was soon joined by another, more tuneful, chirp from a South Arabian wheatear. Adding to the choir came the melody of the hoopoe, then, finally, to bring some alto into proceedings, a particularly noisy crowd of Tristram’s grackle called out. The sound bounced off the rocks and echoed all around me. It was like being in an opera house, only with all the musicians replaced by birds.

I was stood near the bottom of a 210m sinkhole called Tawi Atair, also rather aptly known as the ‘Well of the Birds’. Here, in Salalah, 1,000km (and a one-and-a-half-hour flight) from the Omani capital of Muscat, it was the ideal beginning to my quest to find some of the country’s wildest and least-explored corners.

When it comes to the Sultanate of Oman – squeezed between the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – they do things a little differently. Sure, there is a Grand Mosque and the usual chain hotels found in most established Middle Eastern countries, but there is also a law prohibiting the construction of skyscrapers. As such, you’ll find no gaudy Burj Khalifa-type towers competing to become the tallest building in the world here. No, instead, the whole place appears much more understated, with smaller houses and apartments typically making up the cityscape of the capital.