Home: Middle East: Oman: Mormons at Khor Kharfot:
Every war must end. Such is the conventional wisdom. Is it true of fault line wars? Yes and no.
Samuel P Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
We are waist high in vegetation, looking for a track that leads straight off the edge of the cliff, almost 100m above the sea. Everyone had said there are only two ways to get to the uninhabited beach below us, a beach as anonymous to most of the world as it has become near-mythical. One way is through the wadi that spills out onto its deserted beach, which you can supposedly trace, over days, up the mountains and into the interior desert of the Empty Quarter on the other side. The other is by boat from the nearest
village, Dalkut. And we were about to discover the third: straight down the mountain.
Few people in the sultanate know of Khor Kharfot, and with good reason. This inlet is tucked away between cliffs towards the Yemeni border in Dhofar. Although inaccessible by road, you can get there after an hour of downhill climb (as we found out) or about half an hour by boat – if the sea isn’t too rough. No people live there, and its sliver of beach isn’t reason enough to draw the wanderers. So why would you go to Kharfot?