A few months ago, I joined a small team of botanists and conservationists to track the distribution of rare plant species in Northernmost Oman.
Musandam has the rather odd reputation of being dubbed the ‘Norway of Arabia’. I think this comes from the fjords and craggy coastline. But it’s a bit of silly comparison.
It does nothing to capture the awesome heat that bounces through the bone dry wadi beds. It says nothing about the kindness of rural Omanis who invited us into their homes for tea after a long day trekking along mountain ridges. And it fails completely to capture the bumpy roads that switchback through the terrain, the turtles that bop their heads up by the coast, or the goats and donkeys that maraud across the rocky landscape searching for something to nibble on.
So all in all, the Norway of Arabia is a silly nickname.
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