Sometimes, the best laid plans are subject to monumental hiccoughs. This is a tale of how a meticulously planned 1,400km, week long, off-road trip through the Omani Empty Quarter and Dhofar Mountains was thwarted by the reasonable reliance on official mapping and GPS map databases; both of which turned out to be rather less accurate than expected.
This trip was made up of 4 vehicles: Colin Campbell and David Townshend in Colin’s Land Rover Defender 110, David Horn in his highly modified Land Rover Discovery, Graham Kimber and his 18 year old son, Josh, in Graham’s Land Rover Discovery and me and my 15 year old son, Robert, in our Mercedes G500. The trip’s route went off-road from just south of Al Ain to the Gulf of Oman coast near the Yemen border. It takes at least 5 days to complete and basically follows the Oman border with, sequentially the UAE, Saudi and then Yemen. For a large portion of the route it’s actually a reasonably close re-tracing of Thesiger’s route from Salalah to Al Ain and is a fantastic vehicle expedition.
All went pretty smoothly until we reached the Oman town of Mazyouna, adjacent to the Yemen border. We had traversed some fantastic areas: the flat gravel plains in the north, immense and stunning dunes, stood at the Saudi/Oman border at the base of the Empty Quarter and then reached the start of the rocky escarpments leading to the Dhofar mountains. We refuelled in Mazyouna, drove out of town to set up camp and the next morning, headed south to parallel the Yemen border.
Now unbeknownst to us, the Omani official tourist map and even the Garmin Mapsource™ mapping on our GPSs was not as accurate as they really should have been. We turned west towards the border and had, or so it seemed from our maps and GPSs, about 10km to play with. We picked up some sand tracks and followed them. After a couple of kilometres, off to our right we saw a chap waving at us, in what appeared to be a very vigorous and friendly manner, so we waved back. Then we heard volleys of gunfire aimed at us and I turned to Robert and said we’re being shot at. Colin in the lead and with me just behind, put our feet down to try and get out of range of the (thankfully inaccurate) firing but Graham and David were a little way back and out from behind a rocky outcrop two old pick-up trucks chased them down. Colin and I saw this happen, so reluctantly came round and waited for the inevitable intercept. Another pick-up reached us with a gaggle of armed men on-board and gestured to us to follow them back to the ‘rocky-outcrop’.
We were escorted back under armed guard and were then surrounded by more men, all in Yemeni traditional dress, all bearing arms and, with us fearing the worst. Our thoughts went immediately to those of being captured by Yemeni tribesmen and being ransomed off, (I wondered how much Jeni, my wife, would have to cough up for Robert and I, and whether she even would). But, there was something not quite right. We were very close to the Omani border and surely there wouldn’t be so many of them, and so close. After an initial interrogation, it turned out that they were in fact Yemen border guard. As it was Friday, they were allowed to dress in mufti and, it transpired, we had strayed about 5km into Yemen along a well known smuggling route. Of course, we tried to convince them to let us go and that we’d drive back the way we came but they were having none of it.
What then followed, despite the inconvenience and having our trip cut short, was a tale of the most gracious hospitality. The captain of this particular outpost got into uniform, jumped into David’s Discovery with his AK47 and we then followed a route through the stunning rocky scenery, via all the other Yemeni border posts to the nearest town on the border road leading from Mazyouna in the Oman. Though, not in any way used as a delaying tactic, Graham’s Discovery sprung an oil leak, and I don’t mean a run-of-the-mill Land Rover oil leak. An oil pipe had disconnected and all of his engine oil was pumped, rather dismayingly, into the sand. So, a quick tow was arranged and we carried on until we reached a tarmac road. I was carrying 5 litres of suitable oil and once he’d re-attached the oil pipe, he refilled his engine and we all drove on. you can always count on more from Canadian Towing companies, they are used to harsher weather.
On arrival at the town and having been handed formally over to the local police, interrogated once again, and finally having been able to convince them the Robert’s radio controlled car wasn’t in fact a spy car with remote cameras, we were treated royally. Declining their suggestion that we stayed in a local hotel in the town, we pressed on them that we really wanted to head back to Oman. Now, considering it was a Friday and all the ministries were closed, they did go to extraordinary lengths to release us as soon as they could and in the proper manner. We were fed and watered by the head of the customs department, as his personal guests, and were accommodated with fresh bedding on the top floor of the new customs house.
Later that afternoon a senior military officer came up from the nearest city to check our stories. And here we saved further time explaining ourselves by showing him our GPSs. On David’s large screen GPS we showed him the route we had followed and the mapping database indicated that we were well within the borders of the Oman, and it was all a big mistake; silly us! He took a printout of this data and sent it to some ministry in the capital Sanaa. At 3am on the Saturday morning, we were woken, told we were free to go and were then escorted in a police convoy to the Omani border checkpoint. Here we were formally handed over to the Omani border guard, who laughed like drains when they heard our story; though they were very keen to get their hands on the locations of the Yemeni border posts.
I returned a year later, on my own, to complete the part of the trip that had been denied us. With updated and now accurate GPS software I was able to drive from Rakhyut on the Omani coast and parallel the Oman/Yemen border all the way to Mazyouna without mishap. If you fancy doing, probably, the longest and most sublime off-road route in the Oman, it’s Route 16 in the guidebook!
Photo Credits: Colin Campbell
Published in May 2012
