mystery of the fluttering dishdashas

I am the grass. / Let me work.
Carl Sandburg, Grass

Somebody was waving at us in the distance, on the top of a hill that overlooked a wadi that crept out of the unexplored mountains south of the Quriyat road. We hadn’t seen another vehicle in an hour of exploring the dirt track, and had left the last collection of village huts far behind. The wadi below us supposedly lasted 90km, forming, at the minimum, Wadi Sareen that ran through the wildlife sanctuary; Wadi Hareem, that meandered around nothing in particular and, after ducking under the highway, Wadi Mijlas, which can take you into Quriyat if you’d prefer to go off-road.

And now, in the late afternoon breeze, a man in a dishdasha seemed to be waving at us in absolute abandon, from the top of an unnamed hillock in an unnamed point along Hareem. Looking a little harder through a telephoto lens revealed that it was indeed a dishdasha, but instead of a man within it was fluttering around a stick, forming a flag, marking the point for some purpose. In a bare landscape of no people, a fluttering flag jumps out like a neon sign on fire, certainly enough reason to warrant a closer look.

Separated by a curve in the wadi, we started walking down into it, before climbing up the other bank. It seemed, almost immediately, that we were treading on an old path, that the grass had grown around stones thrown up, that there almost seemed to be a pattern forward in the leaves and pebbles if you looked long enough. And then, after slipping maybe 20ft down, a ledge lower, an abandoned wreck of a settlement, just a few pieces of wood, a pole or two, naked nails sticking out. Natural pockets in the wadi wall, too shallow to be called caves, seemed dark with soot. Whoever was here had long gone, leaving behind scraps – and one lone dishdasha above.

A couple of minutes more and we were down in a bend on the wadi floor, all predictably smooth rock bordered by vegetation. The opposite side seemed too steep to climb, so we walked along until we got to a good spot, and started climbing. Again, strangely, we seemed to be on a path and yet not quite, following a hint of a parting in the undergrowth. Someone might have been here.

These lower folds of the mountains held another surprise: more greenery than you would normally find in Oman. This wasn’t the lush tangle you’d get during the khareef in Dhofar, but rather a light sprinkling of fresh grass, the occasional shrub and even, deep in the folds below, the knotted collection of low tree branches. Higher up, where the climb flattened out at the top, past a shallow donkey pit in the dirt, was the flag: a full-length white dishdasha, fluttering gaily in the wind.

But what did it mean, whose territory did it mark, which path did it point to? The suggestion of a track we had been on had ended at the flag, and the flat bit we had reached rose too sharply ahead. We sat down in the wind and dying light, and sipped on water. And then we saw it, perhaps half a kilometre off, on another hill: another dishdasha, identically placed. Were we supposed to follow them, one to another, and then perhaps come to a third, like a trail of breadcrumbs that would lead us to some to-be-discovered secret? We looked around for more, and then – this was getting predictable now – found a third, this one deep in a fold of the mountain, just before the slopes rose too high.

One thing was certain: this wasn’t a path to follow, for the flags formed a triangle, at too sharp angles to each other. This couldn’t really be someone’s land either, because a triangular plot over a collection of hillocks and slopes didn’t make sense. And it couldn’t have been a joke, because the children of the villagers would have to go to too much trouble walking too far, and such antics are usually the luxury of city folks. So what did that leave us with? Nothing. We turned back and left promising to come back and investigate the other two.

We did return, weeks later, but decided to go down into the wadi another, easier way. A few feet away came the predictable surprises: another suggestion of a path – this one even seemed to have been used by vehicles – and, best of all, a fourth dishdasha, fluttering like the other two. Hours later, scrambling upwards on the slopes above, we spied a fifth one, this one furthest away from the road. And still the shape they would form on a map, and everything about each one of them, seemed so pointless it didn’t warrant hours of hiking. There was nothing here except five dishdashas, mysteriously put up.

Their surroundings are charming, with a few pools of water in the wadi if you’re lucky, lots of greenery in the shade, and a softness in the landscape that is tough to come by in Oman.



Driving to a dishdasha

Zero your odometer at the Wadi Hatat roundabout
17km Turn left at last roundabout, towards Quriyat
37km Turn right to Arqi (you have to go there)
40km Pass Jahloot
49km Pass Wadi Sareen reserve, on your right
54km Signboards to Siya
59km Arqi. Turn right just before, at sign pointing to Tabah, Smeer, 24km away
60km Turn right to Smeer
63km There is a right turn to Wadi Hareem. Ignore it for this trip (it will dead-end a few kilometres on, and loop back and join your track later)
65km Junction, where the road that had gone to Wadi Hareem loops back
67km A wide curve, with a wadi on your left. Park here. To your right, on the other side of the wadi, where a low hillock meets the mountain, is a fluttering dishdasha. If you drive a few seconds ahead, without leaving the wadi below, you will notice tracks on the right, leading you to another flag.
70km Left turn, with a few houses
72km Mosque
73km dirt track meets Muscat (left)-Quriyat (right) road, at Sawaqm



GPS readings in UTM

Park your car on the curve
40 Q 0680344, 2568899
Elevation 284m

Walk on an old track
40 Q 0680282, 2568806
Elevation 283m

Abandoned settlement
40 Q 0680338, 2568726
Elevation 261m

Left corner of wadi. Climb up
40 Q 0680487, 2568836
Elevation 235m

Fluttering dishdasha #1
40 Q 0680536, 2568502
Elevation 296m

Grassy left bank above the wadi, old stone corral
40 Q 0680563, 2568980
Elevation 262m

Dishdasha #2, that you can drive to
40 Q 0680963, 2568941
Elevation 241m

Viewpoint above dishdasha 2. You’ll see all the dishdashas from here. Steep climb. Pick another route to come down
40 Q 0681339, 2568936
Elevation 318m

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