Sea Turtles Don't Like the Rain?

On the second day of our trip, the weather turned pretty foul. It got very cloudy and began raining off and on. One of the things you must be aware of is the possibility of flash flooding in the wadis. A wadi is an Arabic term that traditionally refers to a valley, but we refer to it as a dry riverbed that only contains water during a heavy rain.

A cyclone passed through Oman a few days before and some people died in wadis after being caught in flash flooding.

As we were heading to the turtle beach in Sur, we decided to stop at Wadi Bani Khalid along the way. The skies were threatening and it was making me feel a little nervous. There were plenty of cars and people there, and there were supposed to be some cool caves, so we decided to check it out.

We parked the car and walked past the pools. Some Omani guy told us to be careful. He said, "Even if it isn't raining here, it could be raining in the distance and still cause a flash flood which is very dangerous." Great. Way to boost my confidence.

So, Thomas and I set off in search of these great caves that were mentioned in the guide book. We walked and walked. It was getting really nervous because I could feel small sprinkles of rain. I figured the caves couldn't be as far as we had walked, so we turned back. Sure enough. Someone pointed out a small entrance in the rocks that I had suspected was an entrance to a cave.

We peeked inside, but it didn't look like much. Soon, an American family walked over with 3 kids that were eager to explore the cave. At some point I asked where they were from. The wife was from Boston and the husband was from....wait for it..... Chagrin Falls, Ohio!! What the hell? I swear, everywhere I go I meet someone from a Cleveland suburb. Never fails. Weird.

So the dad went in and checked out the cave first and went on and on about how cool it was. His kids were beggin to go in the cave, so we decided to follow.

We crawled pretty much the whole time to a tiny stream. That was it. Really. Pitch dark, on our knees, in a cave, tiny stream. Ok whatever!

Strolling through the wadi.

I found a nice chair to sit in.

The very dark cave.

Where are we going?

Is this it? Seriously?

Family portrait.

We had enough of the wadi and wanted to make it over to Turtle Beach in Ras al Jinz before night fall. It started really raining and we finally made it there. We went inside to ask for a reservation to go on the beach and watch the turtles lay eggs and watch some babies hatch that night. They only take small groups of 15 people so as not to scare the turtles too much and no pictures are allowed. You can go anytime from 9pm - 4am.

The guy at the desk said, "No, full tonight." "Full tonight?" I said. "Completely? Even at 4am?" The man said, "Yes, no reservations for 5 days." 5 days? He continued, "Maybe cancel tonight anyway and the turtles not come because of rain." Seriously? The turtles don't like the rain? They live in the freakin' sea! How can they not like the rain? Ugh. So, no turtles for us.

Well, the would certainly be no camping for us that night. Again, we got a hotel room, this time on the beach. A very dirty beach. But it was ok.