I arrived at Aiyun around Sunset. The mountains were cracking as they cooled down after the day’s intense heat and, in answer, birds called .

Wilfred Thesiger first arrived here in the Autumn of 1946, descending through the same pass as I had taken. The place hasn’t changed since his visit. The beds of Reed still flourish and the water in which, he was told, a monster serpent lived and would sometimes seize a goat when it came to drink, is still deep and suitably mysterious & dark.
The next morning I took a few photos – of a magical place, serpent or not.
Returning to Muscat I took in the Aeolianite Coast – the fossilized sand dunes of Oman that underlay both desert and sea bed . Here they form cliffs which crumble into the sea, probably retreating meters every year.

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