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Friday morning, we set off for the Bimmah Sinkhole, My friend’s sister gets all the credit for telling us of it, but he gets all the credit for actually making the decision and initiating us going there!

It was about a two hour drive, but once we made it onto the main highway and I barely had to navigate, it was really relaxing–we’d figured out how to link up our music and the scenery was filled with mountains that reminded me of Zion. We passed a couple of really cute cities as well that felt gorgeously Middle Eastern.

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This section of road right here, headed straight for the beach, was reminiscent of driving down Noriega Street in San Francisco, going straight down the hill towards the ocean. Though the sky is rarely so blue and Ocean Beach rarely as appealing, from the car this could have been a sunny San Franicscan Sunday morning.

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Though we’d seen pictures, I was blown away by the colours of the sinkhole. Science says that this gorgeous waterhole was formed by limestone dissolving; however, I liked the Omani legend that a meteorite had crashed into the earth and formed the sinkhole.WP_007353 WP_007357 WP_007359Though I didn’t have shorts or a tank top on me let alone an actual swimsuit, I had a bad feeling that I’d end up swimming upon looking at the water–it seems that I really have no restraint around water. First, I told myself I’d just wade, but then I remembered I had my contacts case in my bag. I then intended to keep my head above water to spare the hair, but that lasted about two seconds once I was actually in the water.

The sinkhole was deeper than I had initially thought; though I swum down as far as I could, I couldn’t touch the bottom, even when I could see it–and I can hold my breath for thirty seconds easily, which shows just how clear the water was! Although the whole swimming-in-a-dress thing didn’t really help. I was delighted by the schools of tiny fish, and swum in circles chasing them around and catching them with my hands.
WP_007364 WP_007367The great thing about having my clothes be absolutely soaked was that the temperature outside was finally bearable, and for the first time in a while I actually felt cold on the way back!
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We stopped at a tiny coffee shop next to a petrol station on the way back, and for 250 baisos (or a quarter a rial) each had absolutely amazing sandwiches. Mine was chicken, made with some sort of pestoy/not spicy/kind of tangy sauce, fresh lettuce, and tomato in a wrap. Though this was still about 90km out of Muscat, we agreed it’d be worth driving that far for those sandwiches!