An all-terrain ultra adventure in Oman
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It escalated quickly. In a matter of minutes, I went from never having heard about water trekking to obsessing over it. The epiphany came over a midsummer lunch with friends in Sardinia: my host handed me a guide to the local “acqua trekking” (as the Italians call it) with itineraries that ranged from a morning stroll to a multi-day adventure in the island’s mountainous interior. The combination of trekking, swimming and the occasional crawl under a fallen tree seemed like the most consequential form of fun. “How is it possible I’ve never done this before?” I asked myself. The sporty, broad-shouldered Venetian aristocrat sitting on my right assured me Oman was “the best” place for it.
Whereas Italy is shaped like an over-the-knee stiletto boot, Oman, situated in the south-eastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, more appropriately resembles a hiking shoe, with its heel tab jutting into the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Like many of its neighbours, the sultanate is rolling out an ambitious reform agenda for a post-oil economy, and, thanks to a diverse natural environment that ranges from a privileged coastline to vast deserts and rugged mountains, it is betting heavily on active tourism.
I got planning with my usual adventure companion, Flavio Valabrega. Our destinations would be the cliffs, waterfalls, flat riverbeds and natural pools of the Omani wadis. Wadi refers in Arabic to a river valley and, as I discovered, is the origin of the root word guad, which is used in the toponym of many of the rivers – Guadalquivir, Guadalete, Guadiana – where I live in Andalusia. It’s the legacy of the Iberian peninsula’s Arabic occupation.
The Oman Air red-eye departed from Heathrow at 8pm and put us down in Muscat just after sunrise. We breezed through immigration and customs in the smart new terminal; 20 minutes after landing, we were greeted with a firm handshake by Haitham, a young, sporty Omani guide (who, as he would tell us later, has 11 siblings from the same parents and an additional six from his father’s second wife). We jumped into his 4x4 Toyota and, to the beat of old Egyptian classics, made our way through the wide roads of a ghostly city whose inhabitants, after morning prayers, had retreated back inside to observe the fasting rituals of Ramadan.
Two hours later, Haitham parked his car under the pillars of a highway bridge, towering far above us, that spanned a river. We ate some dates, got changed, mounted our GoPros on floating hand grips, and jumped into an old fisherman’s boat that took us across to Wadi Shab.
Perhaps it’s the pervasive humidity in the air, but palm trees in Oman look different; their emerald-green foliage paints the scorched canyon walls. A friendly white donkey tied to a pole and two farmers balancing crops in baskets on their heads gave the impression we’d stepped onto the set of an epic Technicolor Easter movie. Outback Oman is remote but surprisingly accessible; a view along the river bank revealed a few dozen, mostly European, tourists who had already spread out their towels. Soon enough, after swimming across a few natural pools – some deeper than others, all of them crystal-clear – we’d ventured far into the wadi, leaving the scent of sunscreen behind. Not long after, we reached a narrow passageway between two massive rocks at the end of a creek. The gap above the waterline was barely wide enough for our heads to fit through. It narrowed even further as we progressed until our ears touched the fluorescent-green moss on either side. Underwater, the situation wasn’t much different: the rocks diverged from each other at a crooked angle, obliging us to swim in contortions against the increasing current. It was a tight squeeze – not ideal for claustrophobics – but the reward at the end of the tunnel was a powerful cascade, hidden in a shadowy, humid elbow of the canyon, which gave us the first taste of the fun that was to come. There is something radically liberating about rapidly combining different ways of moving forward: hiking, climbing, diving, swimming. It was easy to fancy myself some sort of all-terrain amphibian, as in the daydreams I had as a kid of becoming a merman.
The second day turned out to be an all-around test for the four-wheel-drive on Haitham’s Toyota. It started with a 40-minute, impossibly steep uphill drive from our hotel at the bottom of Wadi Al Arbeieen, past herds of elegant long-haired goats and a scattering of farmhouses, to Mibam, a small town carved into one side of the mountain. Here, the aflaj, the traditional Omani irrigation system, had turned the normally barren terrain into a terraced oasis. Our trek at Wadi Mibam was short but packed with action: rappelling down a small waterfall, diving from a tall cliff and even a few metres of via ferrata as we completed the thrilling 2km loop back to our car. Mibam is the best all-rounder for someone who wants the quick, all-in immersion of water trekking. Our day ended with a last test for our vehicle – and for Haitham’s off-road skills – as we sped over dunes, chasing the sunset before heading back to camp for an alfresco shower and some delicious camel-meat stew.
That was special; but our intrepid guide had saved the best for last. After an indulgent breakfast of qurus – Omani crepes filled with cheese and black honey from the mountains – and sweetened Bedouin black tea, we headed out of the desert proper and over the hills towards Wadi Hawir. Apart from a young French family who were driving off in an impressive beast of a truck-camper as we were parking, there wasn’t another human as far as the horizon. It was just the three of us, trekking and swimming our way into our biggest wadi yet.
If Wadi Mibam is micro, condensed and beautiful, Wadi Hawir is something else entirely. Monumental rock formations rise high, the sky above stretching blue between the east and west rims of the canyon; its vast gorge was still in the shadows as we started our trek across the just bearably cold waters of the pools. While it’s not overly technical, Wadi Hawir requires a higher fitness level and, above all, steadier nerves to face a few adrenaline peaks. We had to send ourselves down a steep rock slide – head first, in Flavio’s case – into churning white waters, and abseil a full 16m down a waterfall with the rush of water crashing against our faces. That descent was one of those rare moments of hyper-awareness where I realised that in order to move and, well, breathe, the first thing I had to do was relax. When I finally resurfaced, unscratched, I actually burst into laughter – a purely physical expression – to join Flavio in the warmer, milky turquoise waters of a sun-drenched creek.
For better or worse, it probably won’t be long before a Decathlon near you has a dedicated aisle of water-trekking kit. For now, though, water trekkers need to be inventive in assembling appropriate gear. Our Vibram FiveFingers water shoes were a great option; we both wore the V-Aqua model, which is light enough to swim in and dries pretty fast – though a pair with better grip would have been better for slippery rocks. Flavio was happy with his old Prada nylon swimming shorts; I wore my medium-length open-water swimming trunks (tight-fitting clothing prevents you from getting stuck on a rock in one of the extremely narrow passages). Then a Patagonia technical T-shirt to comply with local customs (there is no topless swimming in public in Oman); Oakley sunglasses and Orca swim goggles; and our GoPros – though I was pleasantly surprised by the resilience of my iPhone 15 Pro, which ended up being wet for most of the trip. Haitham carried our abseiling gear, a Thermos with Omani coffee and snacks. Anything we especially missed? Pockets in our swimming trunks, and a good pair of binoculars.
In a region developing its tourism interests at speed, there still remains something untamed about Oman. The fact that the sinkhole to one of the world’s biggest caves is not cordoned off is invigorating. Above all, it still feels authentic.
With its robust economy, the sultanate can now draw lessons from the region on how to manage the right form of tourism and protect its natural wonders. I am looking forward to heading back soon to see what they do.
Igor Ramírez García-Peralta travelled as a guest of Experience Oman (experienceoman.om) with an itinerary by Change Your Routine Adventures (cyr-adventures.com), which offers trips starting from £2,800 for two people. Return flights from London to Muscat start at £600 (omanair.com)
This article has been amended to reflect that the cave sinkhole is not cordoned off, but there is some signage
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