We're standing on the Omani border, surprised by the darkness. A long column of trucks is waiting at the checkpoint, headlights are flooding the terrain, vibrating motors, dust. Not a suitable place for camping. From the military base, we are politely, but firmly turned away, the Pakistani at the coffeeshop are underlings in a strict two-class society and aren't allowed to decide anything. Fortunately there's also a small mosque beside the road. A young Omani assures that it would be no problem to stay here, so we pitch our tent between the washing area and the toilet. The muezzin is calling for evening prayer. For once, without a loud speaker, but quietly, directly from within the half-open mosque.

In the night traffic at the checkpoint doesn't stop. The street lights and the heat don't let us sleep. Although we've only set up the inner tent, the sweat is running down.

It takes a whole week, until our bodies have become accustomed to the heat. At the foot of the Hajar Mountains, which we follow for a few days, the sun is reflected from the dark rocks. Although it's already end of October, we measure at noon 45 degrees. Just after midnight it cools down for a few hours in which we can recover. We get used to fill two water bottles more than usual in the evening. Washed, we can sleep much better. Often we camp now undisturbed, slightly off the road in the stone desert and taking a shower in the dark is not a problem. There are magic nights. When the wind has stopped after the sunset, we hear no more noise. Every night the light of the waxing moon is slightly stronger. The landscape glows dimly and above us extends the endless, sparkling starry sky.

A steep slope brings us over a pass into Wadi Nakhar, a dry river valley, from which are branching deep canyons. Now we ride on one of the famous sightseeing routes in Oman. Soon jeep convoys with tinted windows roar past us, they spit out tourist groups which are waiting like us for the perfect evening light on the mud huts of Gul, picturesquely glued on the opposite bank. As we, they are addicted to the cliché images of Oman, which are by far no longer reflecting the real life of the country. The old place Gul has long been abandoned, decayed huts, and if you swing the camera just a few inches to the right, you see the concrete houses of the new Gul in the viewfinder. By no means idyllic but realistic, because the Omanis don't want to live in mud houses in this days. Their life has changed drastically in the last forty years under the planning hand of Sultan Qaboos. As promised at his inauguration, he has brought the country from the Middle Ages to modernity within a short period of time. And he didn't forget to promote tourism.

The promotional images of a fairy-tale land of 1001 nights have shaped our expectations as well. However, we have overlooked the fact that the target group of the Omani tourism promotion are affluent tourists who are looking for a blend of relaxation with Western luxury and a touch of Arabian exoticism. And by now, as we stand beside the groups well-funded tourists, the pretty but lifeless mud houses of Gul in front of our eyes, we realize that we really don't belong here. For two weeks we lived on the streets, showered with a PET bottle and our clothes are stinking. We are tired of the heat, it's time for a break. But we scare the hotel prices.

At sunset we stroll through the old Souq of the oasis city of Al Hamra. Again, the mud houses aren't inhabited and decay, but the oasis garden is still used, lush green, with carefully created fields under the shade of date palms and a Falaj, a canal system for irrigation. Actually we wanted to camp in the garden, but it has too many mosquitoes and so we end up on the playground at the city entrance. We're already in the tent, as suddenly a father with his son arrives. Already we think that we've to clear the field now, but the man doesn't look in our direction. He must have seen us very well, but he keeps playing with his son and leaves us alone. Later, young people come over, roll out a carpet under the slide and want to start a little party here. When they notice our tent, they pack up and disappear immediately. We spend a quiet night in the park and feel in Oman as safe as in Japan from now on.

In Nizwa we finally afford a hotel. The next morning is city animal market and we don't want to miss it. We enjoy the air conditioning, the soft bed and clean linen. On a leash across the room are hanging our freshly washed clothes. We sleep deep and restful. In the night it rains.

A hot day with a lot of headwinds brings us to the edge of the Wahiba Sands. We want to camp at the end of a small oasis village, where the paved road ends and the dunes start. Once again night is falling too fast. In the dark we found a place behind a big load of hay bales. The moon is now half full and spends enough light to cook our dinner. As the muezzin calls, bearded men are walking past our tent, on the way to the mosque. A faint "as-salamu'alaikum" in our direction, a brief curious look, but no one bothers us.

Like on a pencil sketch the moonlight draws fine outlines of goat and camel stables, of the nearby houses and dunes in the surroundings. The wind blows freshly, sprinkled us a pinch of sand over our pasta. Not far away a camel roars. At midnight a jeep stops next to the hay bales. As it doesn't drive away, we befriend us with the thought that the driver will probably sleep here as well. In the morning, dew is on our tent. Early we climb the sand dunes and await the sunrise. Enjoying the view of the endless sea of sand, the beginning of the Rub al Khali, the "Empty Quarter" that stretches from here to near the Red Sea.

And then it goes up into the mountains. For one day, we push our packed bikes 2000 meters up a brutal steep dirt track. Just before dusk we cycle through two mountain villages where screaming kids are running towards us, but immediately run away, as we get closer. The people here are darker, the women wear colorful scarves instead of the black chador and just a headscarf instead of the niqab. They're more self-confident than the Omani women in the lowlands, but when we ask for a campground, we're sent away.

We know that it will be dark soon, but we can't find a good campsite. The full moon rises and shows us the way. On a small pass, we push our bikes together over a few rock slabs up to crumbling stone graves. It's bright and we can see for miles over the mountains. From the distance a fox barks.

On the east side of the Hajar mountains we dive into a thick soup of fog. Since a few hours we're pedaling on the shoulder of the highway along the sea. The abandoned sports field outside the village of Tiwi comes perfect as a place to stay. The grass is piled high and behind it we've perfect privacy to the motorway. Shortly we're discussing whether there's not suddenly held an evening football training, but the place is so far outside of the village and the toilets are without water, that we decide to stay. But since we camped once on a, from the snow cleared slope in remote Siberia, far away from every human soul, and then in the middle of the night promptly a bulldozer drove out of nowhere and almost rolled us flat, we should know it better. Clear: When we're ready for bed at eight' clock, it makes “zack”, the eight floodlights go on, the environment is illuminated in the radius of one kilometer and soon after, a red and a blue football team jogs on the artificial turf. We pack up and as we push our bikes towards the highway, one of the red team calls us laughing after: "Survival?" Maybe that was the beginning of our misfortune.

Two days later we reach the capital Muscat. Long time we can't find any accommodation under sixty francs, many hotels are fully booked. It begins again to darken. On the promenade we park our bicycles in front of an internet cafe to continue searching online. When we check in the hotel an hour later, we notice that one of our document bags is missing in the camera bag. In it were our passports and two credit cards. It's possible that it was just stolen in the tourist mile in front of the internet cafe, but just as well it may be gone for days, because we didn't need the passports. We've become negligent, because we felt so safe in Oman. The loss of passports is the nightmare of every traveler. In Oman we've (momentarily) no Swiss Embassy, only a consulate directed by a sick, elderly Honorary Consul, who must receive Mr. Ogi (famous Swiss politic) in two days. The wrong time for our concern. A whole week it will take to get temporary passports from the main embassy in Saudi Arabia, a thing that could be done in an hour on a regular Swiss Embassy. Because Skype is blocked in Oman, we wait for days to mail responses of the EDA and the Swiss embassy in Cairo, where we want get the regular new passports then. The long hotel stay inexorably eats a hole in our travel budget. But we don't feel able to stay in this situation by couch surfing hosts. We want to be alone. We spend sleepless nights and need a long time to find new motivation. Fortunately, our parents and contact persons in Switzerland help us a lot and slowly we make progress. We recognize that we've always been lucky in the last fifteen years in all our travels, that waiting is tedious and expensive, but it also goes past someday. And soon we yearn for the departure. For days and nights full of surprises. With a new goal in mind: The route Cairo - Cape Town.

It's African time!