Trip 1 – Trekking in Oman
The first night in Oman involved a nightime journey to our campsite where, to the student’s relief, their tents were already erected. After gazing at the beautiful Omani star filled sky, students eventually got to bed for an early start the next day. Some students were brave enough to ignore the mosquitos in order to sleep under the stars.
The next day dawned warm and bright. Camp was packed and rucksacks rearranged. The prospect of carrying their own food now just started to dawn on some of the students. After a thorough briefing, the students started their first trek, with St Christopher’s staff setting off some time after the last group. The staff soon caught up with our intrepid hikers at the foot of a rather large sand dune. With encouragement, everybody managed to traverse the “impossible mountain” and continue on their way. After a long day of walking, getting lost and frequent comments on how difficult sand is to walk on, we reached our new camp for the night. Cooking on trangias, while not exactly high dining, was successfully completed with minor loss of equipment and so to bed in preparation for another long hot trek over the dunes.
By the second day, students were becoming more adapted to their environment and were able to organise themselves much faster. The students even had enough time to complete an early morning PE session, which everybody enjoyed so much. The second walk also consisted of more dune bashing on foot over some picturesque landscape. This longer trek really challenged the students and there were many tired feet by the end of the day. As a reward for completion of their trek, the students enjoyed a traditional campfire with traditional Arabic songs provided by the instructors as well as some home-grown talent.
Over the entire trip, it was impressive to see how supportive of each other the students were. Nobody was left behind on the treks. With pride and a little waft of unwashed students. the party set off home to Bahrain looking forward to the luxuries of modern plumbing.
