As we ground to a halt behind the bright yellow bus, I leant out of the car window and smelt the air, thick with heat and dust. In front of us, a small boy clambered down from the school bus, books clutched to his chest and scampered up the path to the squat house that sat alone, a couple of minutes' drive outside the small town of Al-Hamra.
The boy's home had a neat square of garden in front of it - not lawn exactly, but a few splashes of green and some determined-looking scarlet flowers battling through the scorched soil. It was unremarkable in itself, but what lay around it was more arresting - a great, yawning expanse of absolutely nothing. No other houses, buildings, cars, trees or flowers. Just a vast rubble-and-sand wasteland, stretching away to monolithic mountain peaks in the distance.
Oman is like that. Great coffee-coloured wastes of nothingness and then, suddenly, a house or a village, or a gentle curve of palms, their green leaves shockingly vivid against the pallid backdrop, tracing the banks of a wadi, or dry river bed.
It takes a few days to adjust to the landscapes and far longer, I suspect, to fully understand them. For tucked away beneath these seemingly blank canvases there is plenty of life; as with so much of this huge country, it is simply a case of knowing where to look.
The wadis are the key to understanding Omani life outside of the capital, Muscat. For centuries they have been many things: roads when they are dry, places to wash and bathe and play when the rains come and they are wet. "You will find this funny," Jamal told us, as he drove my friend Sara and me from the airport. "When the rains come, people take - what do you call it? - sickies. We take days off work and we sit by the wadis and picnic in the rain, and swim. The rainy days for us are like your Christmas."
But for most of Oman's year, the wadis double as roads, criss-crossing the vast plains, often the most easily navigable route between scattered towns. Until the 70s, there were only 10 miles of asphalt road in the whole of Oman, but a programme of road building, accelerated in recent years, is slowly revealing a country which still has large areas of unexplored wilderness. The interior of Oman, once accessible to only the feistiest self-driver, is beginning to open up.
Yet most people who come to Oman still never venture out of their comfortable Muscat hotel, so after a night in ridiculous luxury at the Al Bustan Palace, on a private beach near the capital, it felt fantastic - if a little daunting - to be at the wheel of a tank-sized 4x4, heading down a new three-lane motorway towards Nizwa.
This road now links Oman's present-day and former capitals in as little as two hours, but we took most of the day to reach our destination, turning off the highway on to unsurfaced bumpy roads - dusty strips that seemed to twist away to vanishing point, only to suddenly reveal a cluster of houses, silent beneath the sun.
We stopped in Samail, a well-to-do town that stretched along a palm-lined wadi, the tiny square home to Oman's oldest mosque. "It's a bit like a posh private estate," said Sara, as we juddered across the wadi and on to smooth slim roads that wound between big houses hidden behind the trees. I pulled up to let a gleaming black jeep edge past. As I looked closely I realised the driver and passenger were both women. For a brief moment our reactions mirrored each other. Two women? Out and about in Oman? Driving?
"Of course," Nawaf told us later, as we sipped gin and tonics in the bar of the Golden Tulip hotel, just outside Nizwa, "women can do anything in Oman. We have many women in government. They work everywhere. They have equality."
We hadn't expected to get chatting to Nawaf; when we first walked into the hotel bar we weren't sure we should have been there at all. We'd dressed respectfully, in long-sleeved shirts and trousers, but as we settled onto a sofa with our G&Ts we got the strong impression that the other four people in the bar - all men, clad in white dishdashas, playing pool and smoking, beer cans and mobile phones jumbled on the table between them - were not overly comfortable with our presence. It was only when I went to the bar to ask for a glass of water that Nawaf jumped up to say hello and what were our names and were we from England and would we like to join them for a drink.
It would have been impolite to say no. We sat, a little awkwardly at first, while Nawaf explained, in perfect English, that he worked as a guide and was taking a group of Americans to Nizwa Fort in the morning. "I like working with tourists, but I don't want lots more to come - we don't want to be Dubai," he said, solemnly. "Our Sultan, Sultan Qaboos, he has modernised our country, but he believes in keeping tradition, too. He listens to what the Omani people want. Do you know that for two weeks every summer Sultan Qaboos camps in the desert so that those from rural villages can come to his tent and ask for what they need?"
"Do they get it?" I asked.
Nawaf looked surprised. "Of course. They say they need electricity or water, and Sultan Qaboos makes it happen. He is an amazing leader. Anyone who doesn't think so is mad in the head."
We came across such fiery loyalty, and pride in being Omani, in everyone we talked to. They all stressed what progress Sultan Qaboos had brought to the country - introducing free schooling for all, and bringing electricity and running water to many rural communities for the first time - yet how careful he was to keep the traditional ways. It is a balance that seems to have created a genuine sense of national pride and contentment, even if observers from abroad see Sultan Qaboos's 30-year reign as a dictatorship, however benign.
What is undeniable is that Sultan Qaboos has taken a 19th-century society and pushed it into the 21st. One of my main reasons for wanting to visit was to see Oman before the roads and technology and big business take over and make it just another Dubai. But as we drove through the country and walked the streets of towns and villages, it became clearer and clearer that my fears were unfounded. People have to be hungry for change; most Omanis seem too contented to be hungry.
There has been some tourist development outside Muscat; not least in Nizwa, where the vast 16th-century fort and the huddle of souks beneath it have been rebuilt and smartened up. It feels a little sanitised, but even the sleek new brickwork can't detract from the sheer scale of the fortifications - the tower reaches up to 35 metres, built on a 15-metre platform to repel invaders. We wandered around in the morning sunshine, through the neat souks, where men stood by their stalls selling woodwork and jewellery, rugs and ceramics, and chatted on their mobile phones. They smiled as we passed but no one asked us to come and browse, to see their shop, to bag a bargain; hassle is clearly not a word in the Omani dictionary.
It was the most relaxed souk I had ever visited - until the moment an old man saw me, and covered his eyes as I walked past. In spite of my linen trousers and long-sleeved shirt I felt strangely ashamed. Tourism may have come to Nizwa, but it remains a staunchly conservative town.
Once in the fort itself, we realised that the Omanis were canny architects. Inside lies a maze of anterooms and narrow meandering staircases with the occasional missing step (now covered with glass). Unsuspecting invaders would fall down these into a deep pit below. If they managed to jump the gap, they would be hit by boiling date oil poured through shafts that open directly on to the steps.
Even without these hazards, the climb up was hot and heavy going, but the views from the top were worth every wheezing breath - a 360-degree vista across the rooftops of Nizwa to shimmering date palm plantations and vast, silent wastes beyond.
This central part of Oman is littered with forts. We drove on to Bahla, a small town famous for two things - its 13th-century adobe fort (closed on the day we visited) and its pottery. No home in Oman is complete without several pieces of Bahla pottery. We strolled down into the souk, dominated by its potters, and peered into tiny adobe workshops, where great slabs of clay lay on the floor and dozens of pots, urns and plates lay stacked around the tiny space.
"You walk?" asked one, pointing to the clay and walking his fingers across his hand. We shook our heads, slightly bemused; only when we dipped into the guidebook later did we realise that the great slabs of clay are softened by the potter's feet, stamping up and down.
It's said that the potters of Bahla are born with magic in their fingers, but it seemed to me that those whose labour had created the vast walls of Jabrin Fort - another 20 minutes' drive into the plains beyond Bahla - had bought something similarly mystical to their project. Jabrin sits alone on an empty plain, visible from miles around, and when we visited it was entirely empty, save for the elderly man at the gate who beamed when he saw us, took our 500 baisa (80p) and offered us cotton shawls to protect us from the sun. As we walked across the vast empty courtyard and slipped in through a side door I felt like a child on a history trip - discovering secret passageways, clambering up hidden staircases, exploring room after unexpected room that opened into yet more unseen chambers.
The next day we set out to explore the Hajar mountains, which stretch away from Nizwa and Bahla, dominating the skyline. The highest peak is Jebel Shams, newly accessible on one of Sultan Qaboos's roads and stretching up to more than 3,000m. We drove towards it through the town of Al-Hamra, loitering behind the school bus, happy to gain a glimpse of rural Omani life. The new road lay parallel to the wadi; occasionally a jeep would rumble along it, throwing up clouds of dust. It was what lay at the far end that we wanted to see: the ruined village of Ghul, a cluster of forgotten houses, slowly crumbling in the sunlight, backed by vast slopes and looking down over a wave of palm trees.
The steep climb up Jebel Shams was something I would never have attempted on an unsurfaced road, but as we wound around hairpin bends and accelerated past the odd grumbling lorry it became clear what we would have missed. The sheer scale of Oman's landscapes is awe-inspiring - not least because so little that is man-made interrupts the spectacle. Wadi Ghul is known as the Grand Canyon of Arabia, and as we pulled off on to an unmade track thousands of feet above it, and surveyed the panorama, it didn't seem an exaggeration. Far below us, cars wound through the wadi like insects, while all around the empty slopes of the Hajar mountains soared up towards the vast cerulean sky.
As the sun began to set we agreed it was time to head back. I put the car into reverse, backed down the track, nudged the car into first and put my foot on the accelerator. Nothing happened. The wheel span and my foot hit the floor. Nothing. "We've lost gears," I said to Sara, quietly. I tried again; we slid back further. It was at this point that my hands started to shake. We were miles from anywhere, with no mobile phone signal, and the only possible point of contact was what seemed to be a campsite, thousands of feet below us. We would have to reverse down the unmade track to reach it.
At this point, we decided to try the only sensible thing: to flick every switch, button and lever we could find. To our joint, unspeakable, relief, the fifth time I hit the accelerator the car lurched forward. We agreed it must have been something to do with the four-wheel drive - although it wasn't until we were safely back in Wadi Ghul that either of us really spoke. But as we glided back down the hairpins, the adrenalin slowly leaving my system, I couldn't help but think that however many roads they build in Oman, it's always going to be the sort of place where you'll have an adventure.
A 10-day self-drive tour of Oman with Audley Travel (01993 838430; audleytravel.com), including flights, 4x4 hire, five days in Muscat in a five-star hotel, two days in Nizwa at the Golden Tulip and two days in the Wahiba Sands at the Desert Nights resort costs from £2,100pp, based on two sharing.
Three driving routes in Oman
Dos and don'ts
The first rule of driving in Oman is to make sure you hire a 4x4: to explore beyond the major sights and towns you will need something that can deal with serious jolts and bumps. Europcar (0871 384 1089; europcar.co.uk) offer seven days' hire of a Toyota 4x4 from around £420.
Driving in Oman is generally hassle-free, except in Muscat. Inevitably this is where you will pick up and return the car, and the only way out of the capital is on a three-lane highway that seems to have rush-hour traffic all day. Once you're out, however, the roads are relatively empty. Increasingly, the choice is between new asphalt roads or old, unsurfaced tracks - it depends how much of a challenge you want. Don't be afraid to dip off the main road: it's the ideal way to explore the country.
"Wadi-bashing" is all about the drive itself, rather than getting anywhere. It's an Omani version of rallying, where you rev up your 4x4 and tackle pools and streams, rocks and boulders. Wadi-bashing is best organised through a local travel agency; try Zahara Tours (00 968 2440 0844; zaharatours.com).
An overnight trip
Leave Muscat in the morning and take the fast road down to Nizwa; spend the day exploring the souks and the fort. On the second day, head to Bahla and Jabrin and explore the dramatic landscapes around Wadi Ghul before heading back to Muscat the same way.
Take the slower, mountain route to Nizwa, over the Hajar mountains and through Wadi Bani Awf. It's a stunning journey, remote and challenging, and although the mountainous stretch is only 70km long, it can take several hours. Explore as per the overnight route on the second day, and on day three head for the orchards, gardens and spectacular mountain villages of Jebel Akhdar and the 2,000m-high Saiq plateau. Then take the fast road back to Muscat.
Follow the three-day itinerary to Jebel Akhdar. On the third afternoon drive to the Wahiba Sands, a stunning expanse of sand dunes that is home to the Bedouin, and stay overnight in the desert. The 1,000 Nights camp is a traditional Bedouin camp (no mobile phones allowed), bookable through Zahara Tours (as above). Most camps will send a car to guide you in - the sands should not be attempted alone. On day four, head to Sur and visit dramatic Sunaysilah Castle and the pretty whitewashed village of Ayjah. On the final day head back to Muscat along the Sur-Qurayyat coast road, which takes in stretches of unspoilt beach.