The mountains in Oman

4.12.24 to 30.12.24

We really liked the desert of Oman the first time, but now we feel absolutely at home in the mountains and the wadis. Ernstli can got out and do a lot and doesn’t always have to stand in the garage and wait.

Ernstli is heavy

Since we’ve been travelling with Globi, we never could use Ernstli so often and so effectively like here in the mountains of Oman. Almost every day we unload Ernstli and drive to the start of a hiking trail or simply to a beautiful place that it wouldn’t make sense to reach with Globi. The Snake Canyon is another such place. We park Globi in the wadi and drive the steep and narrow dirt roads easily and happily with Ernstli. This allows us to reach areas that would otherwise have been inaccessible to us. The area around the Snake Canyon is very well known and when we romp around in it, we understand very well why. Ernstli’s diesel gauge is not very precise, it fluctuates from 50% to 10% and makes us increasingly uncertain. Hence, we don’t drive quite as far as planned. After the excursion, which lasts several hours, we return home to Globi in the afternoon. We are nice to Ernstli because we had a lot of fun with him today. We fill him up again at our gas station and adjust the tire pressure a little to suit the terrain. We put him in the starting position to load him and prepare the loading platform. Everything is ready. I sit on Ernstli and want to start him again, a short “click” and nothing works, no more power. Kind of stupid, but luckily not somewhere on the road, far from Globi! First I want to check the fuses, but to do that the seats have to be removed. We can only do that after we have read the manual!! We did everything right beforehand, but we didn’t pull on the seat, but on the handle behind the seat, which is connected to the chassis, which of course didn’t work because the chassis didn’t want to come off by itself. Anyway, we get to the fuses and can see that all the fuses are still OK. I suspect that one of the three relays might have stopped working. Conclusion: we can’t start Ernstli. He weighs about 250kg. The ramp onto his garage platform is quite steep. With the last of our strength after more than a quarter of an hour of effort from two old people, we manage to get Ernstli back onto the platform, including back pain. Gabi finds a motorcycle workshop nearby on the internet. We drive there and explain the problem to the mechanic and discover that we put a little too much diesel in the tank. The many bumps in the road and the heat caused the tank to overflow and now the whole garage stinks of diesel! After an hour, the mechanic has time for us and explains to us that we have lost the battery contact due to the many bumpy dusty rides, which is normal here. He cleans the contacts, re-attaches everything and Ernstli runs completely normally again. Once again, we realise that we should check the simple things first before tackling the more complicated things!

Happy moment

After we were able to look into the deep wadi several times during the Balcony Walk, we try to experience Wadi Ghul or Nakhr from below. A few locals are standing in a parking lot in front of the entrance to the wadi with their off-road vehicles and explain to us that we cannot drive into the wadi because it is far too narrow for us, but they would be happy to drive us. We decline the offer and drive with Globi as far into the wadi as possible, which is actually not far. We unload Ernstli and drive on with him. The wadi is our absolute dream wadi, beautiful, very narrow with many water crossings and steep climbs. On one climb we meet three expats with their super off-road vehicles, who unfortunately cannot make the climb because the first one spooled on the loose round stones for so long that he created extreme holes. Now they try to turn around. Ernstli takes this obstacle even without the need to switch on the 4×4. Every few meters we have to stop to enjoy the area, take photos and film. At the back of the wadi there are a few houses with people who live here. When it rains, they are completely cut off from the outside world. As we are basking in our joy, a local suddenly drives up in a large Toyo Landcruiser with a tourist. He has obviously easily driven over the expats’ climb! We can now look from the bottom up on our way over the Balcony Walk, it looks really impressive!

Encounters

We meet significantly more overlanders than at the beginning of the year. We are now travelling in high season and in the tourist places. Nesche and Bruno from Germany tell us about their many trips through Asia and elsewhere in the world, they have already seen everything and are always travelling further.

We first meet Christina and Martin from Solothurn with their Mercedes on the Jabal Shams and then again in the Mercedes garage in Muscat with Michael.

David and Charlotte from England are also travelling in a Mercedes. We also meet them twice, once they drive into the wadi and we drive out and the second time the other way around.

Technology Pitfalls

As every year, we have Globi serviced by MAN at the start of our journey. This time at MAN Dubai. In addition to the normal service, the passenger-side low beam LED light also needs to be replaced. After a while, we notice that the high beam simply stays on even after the light and ignition on the passenger side are turned off. It cannot be turned off by any switch manipulation. According to MAN Lachen, this is not possible at all because there is no power to the lamp when the ignition is turned off, but it still always lights up. The only option I have is to switch off the power to the entire chassis, i.e. disconnect it from the starter battery. Every time I turn off the MAN, I have to briefly disconnect the starter battery so that the right high beam does not stay on all night. Not a real problem.

The engine has also not started as quickly as it used to recently, the starter takes quite a long time before the engine finally starts. It’s not bad, it always comes on, but it’s very unusual.

When we drive to the Overlander lounge of Michael from Mercedes, we explain our two problems to him. His mechanic sits behind him. The bulb that was replaced on the passenger side was damaged, he replaces both bulbs and the problem with the high beam always burning is gone! Nobody can explain to me why, but the problem is solved. He attributes the fact that the engine starts so badly to low diesel level in the combustion chamber, he thinks I have a leak somewhere. He checks the diesel line meticulously and finds the leak in the Separ filter! When changing the filter, MAN Dubai obviously broke off the electrical plug for the separator filter’s heating and simply “sealed” the leak with a green adhesive strip. Of course they didn’t say anything, otherwise they would have had to replace the separator filter. A new Separ filter costs a fortune at MAN Muscat, we install therefore an identical local separator filter that has no heating and costs less than 10% of the price of the original filter. We don’t recommend anyone to consider MAN Dubai for a service.

For a smile

Gabi and Ernstli drive us from our parking spot for Globi to the start of the Balcony Walk on Jabal Shams. As we get ready to hike, I need the quad key for a storage box and give it, the key, back to Gabi. But she is also busy with herself. After we have been on the hiking trail for about an hour, I ask Gabi where she keeps the key. She says she doesn’t have it, she gave it to me… No panic yet, we check our luggage and all our bags, no key! Slight nervousness. We either lost the key along the way or it is somewhere with Ernstli. Turning back and walking back for an hour to then walk the same path for another hour is not an option because it would change nothing except our nervousness. We stay cool and carry on hiking. After about four hours we are back with Ernstli and are incredibly excited to see if he is still there and if so, whether we will find the key somewhere. Theoretically there is a spare key in Globi. Ernstli is still here. The key is on the storage box, where everyone can see it. We are very happy and feel very comfortable in such countries, where nothing is stolen. Next time we’ll check where we put the key before we set off!!