"Teruel existe" is a Spanish saying reminding us of the existence of a town hidden in "Montes Universales", remote to all transit roads, somewhere west of Valencia in southern Aragon. The town is beautiful and charming, although one would soon exhaust all the possibilities trying to find things to do there. Oman exists: this, on the other hand, is a completely different story!
I am on the road, 30 kilometres from the Emirati border crossing where the customs official enquired about my insurance. I nodded my head affirmatively, but he asked to see it. "Sure, no problem, I will go get it." The subject was somehow forgotten as we began talking about the house, Iran, the "lady", his 23-year-old wife he could not bare to be separated from not even for a single day ... Huh! The period of a good ten and not very pleasant days when I travelled more than a thousand kilometres, some of which included the Dubai traffic ... without insurance, because this was never questioned while entering the country, had ended. They stamped both carnets and the passport without any trouble whatsoever. "Good luck, you know the way to Oman...?" How wouldn't I, honey, it's right here, beyond the barrier!
Well, the reality is somewhat different. When you cross the Emirati barrier, you will find yourself all of a sudden in a small town called Al Buraimi. The people here lead their lives, make trade, go to their hairdresser, and the traffic is flowing. What have I missed here? No, that barrier could not have been the Omani barrier, as there was no one screaming after me!
40 kilometres away from the border. Boy, something has to be done. This is no longer funny. Thoughts come back to me from the year before last year's entering into Libya with the company of Slovene bikers. The motorcyclists Zoran, Blaž and I had crossed all barriers, all control points, and everywhere we were greeted by a wave of the hand. They wanted to spare the poor motorcyclists the effort of taking off their gloves and helmets and showing their papers. Suddenly, there we were in the Libyan "Al Buraimi" and stopped. In a few minutes, a few long and numerous minutes, a police Mercedes drove after us and pointed us back to the border crossing, where we spent the following two hours, if my memory serves me correctly, dealing with the formalities.
I stop at the filling station. The Indian employee affirms that the border crossing is three kilometres further down the road. Go figure.
The policemen are nice; we spend an hour trying to find Slovenia in the papers. If I were Bosniak, Luxembourger, Italian, Slovak, Croat, Pakistani or Filipino, not to mention (almost) all of the other states of the EU, I would have been given a visa in five minutes. Slovenia was not on the list. I will refer from mentioning someone at Slovenian Foreign Ministry having done his homework badly. I already know the official »everything was done properly« reply of the Ministry. Certainly. I understand. My congratulations! We are simply not interested in third countries, as we are not interested in Jordan, that is why, a couple of years ago in Aqaba, I only met the Croatian politically-economic delegation who signed, among other things, the agreement on cooperation between the ports of Aqaba and Rijeka. But rest assured, the port of Aqaba bears no relevance. It is somewhere far away ... with sand and ... nothing else ... and it's dirty there, down there, at ... the Arabs. I will not discuss the Saudi Arabian farce enacted by our prime minister and his girlfriend (!!!). Dane, my hat's off to you!
Oman? Yes, Slovenia exists. Carnet de Passages? What you don't know can't hurt you! Keeping this in mind, Tilen saved one page of the carnet and spared us any recurrence of exiting Iran at the Oman - Yemen border crossing in the middle of the desert. Yupeeee! Well, let's move on. I will not write books on the subject at this particular moment. Let me just say that I have expected a lot from Oman and it offers all and more. The country is simply wonderful and the people are friendly. If, in addition, it turns out that professionals are employed in tourism, this shall without a doubt be my new work destination.
More on Oman later on, as I am going to spend a whole month over here. I am not going to be prolific, you know, translation into English. Only this time, I will spare the others. My hopeless cry for help was heard and kindly answered by ALKEMIST Translation Agency.
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