I heard about desert camps when we moved to Oman, and I knew that I wanted to try one at some point. The first weekend of Easter Break seemed like an opportune time. We had no plans to leave Oman, so a staycation of sorts was a perfect fit. I was a bit worried it would be hot, but we lucked out with beautiful weather. It actually rained both nights of our stay and we had cloud cover most of our full day in the desert.
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| The camp as seen from the top of the dune. |
Sama al Wasil is a desert camp located near Wasil, Oman. It is in the middle of the Sharqiyah Sands. We booked this hotel via
booking.com. Sama al Wasil prides itself on being eco-friendly.
To get to the camp, you drive through Wasil then follow the signs to Sama al Wasil. It can be a bit tricky on the desert "roads", so just be sure to follow the road that looks most traveled. And note that desert roads are not comfortable to drive on. They are washboard roads that shook the entire car. Be sure to take a 4 wheel drive vehicle or opt to be picked up in town.
Upon arrival at the camp, I was very pleased by what I saw. There are plenty of lovely, Omani-style design elements such as the front door, the painted ceilings, and some of the seating options. They offer a few different types of accommodations. We were staying in a 2 room chalet. The chalets were in a circle around a large, central tent. There were also accommodations off the main circle in two different directions. One of the areas is back behind the dining area. They serve breakfast and dinner as part of your stay, and they provide coffee, water, dates, and oranges as snacks in the main tent. Breakfast and dinner are served buffet-style. It was all very tasty, especially the camel skewers. We also added lunch for our one day. They brought us so much food as part of that lunch that we couldn't finish it all. It was all very tasty, but I mostly have no idea what I was eating. Inside the tent there are many places to sit and relax as well as a ping pong table. The rooms are pretty basic with beds and bathrooms. No TVs, so do bring entertainment.
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| The front door from the inside so that I could see the desert road leading to the camp. |
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| The front office and little gift shop. Notice the fabrics and ceiling. |
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| The outside of our cabin. This porch with the rug and cushions is where we spent our evenings. |
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| Our very simple yet comfortable bedroom. |
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| The dining area. I just loved the remains of this tree. |
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| They had standard height tables and some low tables. I made my family eat at a low table just once to experience it. |
Our one full day at camp, we woke up, had breakfast, then headed for our camel ride. This was the highlight of the trip for me. A true bucket list item. I highly recommend it! Camel rides and activities at this camp did not seem as expensive as at some of the other desert camps, FYI. And for future reference, it is awkward when the camels stand up and sit back down, but the rest of the camel ride is fine. We paid for a 30 minute ride. By the way, I really limited the number of camel pictures below because I took a ton! And the man who led the tour even took the group shot for us. After the camel ride, we spent our day playing cards, reading, watching a movie on our iPad, climbing the large dune nearest to the camp, and just generally relaxing. It was so pleasant from the cloud cover that my youngest son even took off his shoes when up on the dunes.
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| It's a camel!!! |
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| Heading out on our ride. |
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| Our camels relaxing after our ride. |
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| Heading down the dune. It is very steep, so they provided a rope to help with climbing up it. |
As I mentioned, it rained both nights that we were at camp. It made for very pleasant temperatures. We would sit out on our covered porch and enjoy listening to the rain coming down. It was mostly light sprinkles, but it did pour at times, too. The first night there was even a good bit of lightning that knocked out our power. I was worried we wouldn't have power all night. We did in fact still have no power at dinner time. We ate by the light of one of the worker's trucks. But the electricity came back about an hour after we ate dinner.
I'm not sure if we will do a desert camp again because it's more of a bucket list type of stay, but maybe if we're escorting guests around Oman...
