The Weary Sun

The Weary Sun.

As I write, the sun is sang to it's earthy bed by the call to prayer. Oman is a dream, promised by years of study and more. The city of Muscat is a desert oasis. Palm trees line the broad, sweeping avenues. The back streets and alleyways are full of playing children, squabbling cats and young men leading kids of a different kind home to grace the dinner table. Or rather, they were until just a few moments ago. As the last verses fade into the evening air, a devout silence settles across Muscat. There is not a car horn or barking dog to be heard. Only the insistent chirping of crickets breaks the serene air.

It is a city where traditional Omani values exist side by side with modern shops, venues and entertainment complexes. Yet, unlike so many developing and (in this case) newly developed countries, Oman has not prostituted itself nor sold it's soul to western capitalism. Even the electricity substations are hidden away behind or beneath a stone veneer of traditional Omani architecture. Motorway bridges are held aloft not by simple concrete pillars, but by mighty towers that could grace the strongest and mightiest of the Crusader Castles in countries to the North.

Tonight, I don't feel as though I need to venture down a dungeon to find adventure. Tonight, adventure is already here.