Tourists pulled in giant sinks

Housed in fog in the rich mountains of South Oman, a giant gap immersed in the landscape, reflecting with mysterious sounds that have created myths and legends between the nearby tribes.

This huge sinking is one of four that the Dot Dhofar government, including one of the largest in the world: the yawning Kahf Teiq, 211 meters deep and 150 meters wide. At Tawi Atair Sinkhole, tourists are potters on concrete trails and staircases.

But all the holes are not so welcoming. The huge fall of the sheeheet pit, a 40 -minute drive along the mountain streets, is an annular mud, urging the authorities to place a fence and warning signs.

During the AFP visit, a tourist slipped and slipped dangerously near the edge. DHOFAR Governor Marwan Bin Turki al-Said gave assurances to an information involved in AFP that security was priority in the sinks.

Tawi Atair means “good birds” in Dhofar’s peripheral language, a reference to bird twittering, deformed by Echoes, resonated by rock. It was unknown to the outside world until 1997, when a group of Slovenian researchers working with Oman’s Sultan Qaboos University brought it to international attention.

Now the sinks are commercially available as a tourist attraction in DHOFAR, whose temperate climate attracts many visitors from the Gulf during its summer. Far from the margins of the main tourist circuit, Oman as a whole is increasingly attracting attention to international travelers seeking natural beauty and authenticity.

The country welcomed nearly four million visitors in 2024, with the government aiming to triple this percentage by 2040 focusing on sustainable tourism. Dhofar’s folklore has that the sinks were created by meteor strikes, immediate successes from the time they dug the colossal craters.

But Ali Faraj Al-Kathiri, a Dhofar-based geologist, explains that the water flowing into porous limestone forms an acid that then dissolves, creating caves over a period of thousands of years.

Oman’s sinks should not be confused with the “well of hell”, the herbs, black barhout lacquer beyond the Eastern Yemeni border that is rumored to be a prison for demons.