A Desert Morning in Oman

I’m not a morning person.  I’ve tried to leap out of bed and be jolly first thing but I can’t.  Like a hibernating dormouse I’d prefer to slumber on before being gently coaxed awake - ideally by the warm sensation of light filtering in and the aroma of coffee nearby.  No loud sounds please unless it’s light birdsong, or the vague tinkering’s of the coffee being made.   To this end, I’ve found that the only place to achieve this morning perfection is in the desert.

Gertrude Bell thought so too, describing waking ‘….In that desert dawn was liking waking in the heart of an opal’ in The Desert and the Sown - her reportage of journeying through the Ottoman provinces in 1905.  

I vividly remember a desert morning in Oman from many years ago; peering out from my cocoon of a sleeping bag, blinking in the soft light, my head as empty as the sky above me.  I felt as small as a caterpillar dwarfed by the dunes of the Wahiba Sands that surrounded me, and a sense of peace and stillness that I’d never felt before.  Not wanting to miss the show above, I fixed my eyes on the scene above, aware that every blink was a moment lost.  I watched the colours slowly spread through the opal as our little camp gradually started to stir; the sound of Amer, our local Omani guide whistling through his teeth as he lit the fire and soon the welcome splutter of a brewing coffee pot.  The tang of coffee and cardamon punctured the crisp air as a small glass of dark liquid was placed beside me on the hard sand.  Desert morning perfection.  

These days desert mornings in Oman are just the same – but better.  I’ve teamed up with the best in the country who know how to eke out the mornings just a little longer, and in desert locations so sublime you’ll never want to leave.