A few weeks back we camped on one of the pristine beaches in Oman on Musandam side. I have written before about the same scenic journey from Ras Al Khaimah to Musandam, read here. There is clear blue Arabian Gulf on one side of the road and mountains on another side, the road is curvy most of the part. This time we did not stay in Khasab town, instead, we drove up to Khasab inspecting each and every beach on the way. Many beaches were already occupied leaving no space for us to camp. So finally after sunset, we settled with our tent on a beach near Bukha.

A walk with bare feet the on the beach, with waves washing our feet, it was very soothing. We lit up our barbecue with least possible fuel and a lot of hand exercise to provide enough wind to lit up the coals. The smell of barbecue worked as an appetizer for us, I love the food cooked on coal. After our very tasty dinner on the beach next to our tent, we relaxed and watched the stars and heard the sound of wind and sea. Apart from street lights at some distance behind us, it was very dark, stars looked brighter here than what we see in cities where we have significant light pollution. Watching stars on a dark beach is an amazing experience. It is fantastic how our sky looks different every hour during the night, the locations of stars change with rising of next stars. Suddenly we saw our favorite Arabian Fox swiftly passing on the beach, definitely looking for his pray. The mountains are so close to the beach that for these nocturnal aminals who stay in mountains it is very easy to climb down the mountains and look for food either fish or turtle eggs etc on the beach. The Fox was looking bright white on the dark beach, but with its unique long ears and the long bushy tail, it was not difficult to recognize. On our every Musandam trip, these foxes never failed to appear in front of us.

These foxes are so quick and calm that we never hear any sound when they come and they vanish swiftly too. So again this time as well we could not capture them in our camera. But the experience was thrilling for us. With this encounter of wildlife, we went to sleep happily in our tent. We had finished all our food and had only some fruits in a basket left outside or tent, we did not realize that it may attract some animals (or wild animals)!It is very tranquil to sleep right next to the sea. The continuous sound of waves and breeze coming from the sea makes the perfect atmosphere for sleeping under stars. During the late night I suddenly woke up as I felt something near to me from outside of the tent, when I opened my eyes and looked around, I could see the silhouette of those long ears and face on the tent cloth just near my head! It was annoying, I hurriedly woke my husband up and shooed away the fox, who was just next to me, but only on outside of the tent. My husband quickly went outside the tent, but couldn’t see anything. He did not believe me that there was a fox outside our tent and he couldn’t resist laughing seeing me annoyed. I know these tiny foxes don’t harm humans but it was scary for me to feel the fox so close to my face and seeing it’s amplified shadow next to my head.

My husband went to sleep immediately saying it must be a dream. I told him we’ll check the pugmarks in the morning and went to sleep. After some time or maybe hours again I felt the fox outside the tent near my face, so this time I woke up my husband and just asked him to look at the shadow. When he saw it he agreed and told me (and himself) not to fear. We watched the shadow, without making any movement or sound for around 20/30 seconds and then the fox ran away swiftly. I thought is it fruit basket attracting foxes? But we agreed between us that foxes won’t eat fruits and we went back to the tranquil sleep again.

First thing in the morning, we opened the front cover of the tent and watched the sea and next thing, my husband got the camera and started taking photos of pugmarks of foxes. The pugmarks were concentrated more on the side of the tent near my head (lol? do foxes like hair or smell of my shampoo?). We also found out the fruits from basket were on the floor and one apple and one banana were missing. So guys, let me announce our finding,  Blanford’s fox eat apple and banana :D!

These foxes are frequently seen in mountains of UAE, Oman and the region. But for us, they are still wild animals, as we don’t get to see them anywhere near Dubai/Abu Dhabi or cities in UAE. This part of Oman is not developed and not yet commercialized so it is a perfect place for eco-tourism and camping. Every time we come here we get to see some beautiful Arabian wildlife.

We enjoyed the sea and water for a while and looked for some natural souvenir from the place. On these beaches surprisingly pebbles are carried with water to shores along with shells. The varied color of pebbles and shells red, yellow, brown, green is a definite indication that this region is mineral rich. We found some small colorful fish just brought with a wave on the shores.

We saw many types of jellyfish on the beach. Not just dead but a lot of live jellyfish we found, so we decided not to swim.
Some jellyfish were looking like a yellow rubber or tiny balloons. This jellyfish with the eye was breathing, so we lifted these live jellyfish and threw them back to sea.

On the way back we took a stop near marshy land in Bukha. This place is a good spot to watch birds. We could spot only these black headed Common Tern this time. The beach where we camped, we found a red-backed shrike on a tree.

Camping in wild definitely is very refreshing as well as a thrilling experience. Only we need to make sure that everytime we enjoy wild nature, we should not disturb nature. We should not leave behind garbage and need to clean up our trash. When I thought about the incident from that night and how my first reaction to the Fox was shouting. Did I scare that fox? But I don’t think I scared the foxes else they wouldn’t have returned again. If the fox was scared by my loud shout (!) it would have run to its cave home in mountains and stayed hungry for at least that night, but instead, the Fox decided to have our apple and banana for dinner that night!