Yesterday, we went to the sinkhole to swim and see the beginning of the tour of Oman. We piled into the car with 2 more people than usual and drove off. The drive was a hour and ten minutes and it was really squishy with nine people instead of the usual seven. Finally after the drive, we arrived at the sinkhole, frazzled but excited.
It was really weird when we got there because there were a bunch of big, neon yellow, stinky, dump trucks. It turns out they were what the bikers carried their bikes in! I thought it was funny-- 5,000 rial bikes in dump trucks. :-) Anyhow, when we got out of the car, there were all of these teams, just standing around, chatting. We interviewed a few people and found out the bikers had massagests and phisical therapists!
Suddently, the bikers arrived along with a huge helecopter from the press which had a camera on the front of it. They came in cars, no limos like I thought they would. All of the cars had little stickers on them to show who sponsored them. Later, after the bikers parked, they started to get dressed and drink special energy drinks. I got the autograph of Chris Froome and he was the winner of the race! Yay! But the funny part was that Zara and Jensen were walking around, asking questions and asking for autographs, when they saw a biker changing next to his car. They squealed their heads off and yelled, " AWKWARD! " in the middle of the parking lot. Everyone stared at them. It was so funny. Also, my friend Amy, wanted to get the team Argos to sign something, but they had driven across a field in their car. So we started off across the field but about half way across, there was a biker peeing against a tree. I was pretty sure if Amy or Jensen saw they would flip so we decided to turn around. Amy never got her autograph.
Finally, the bikers were going to start racing! We scurried to the start line to watch. We found a good place to watch from and got ready. There was a guy from the Tour of Oman website that took a picture of me and it is now online. I have Chris Froom's autograph in one hand and the water bottle in the other hand. While we were waiting we watched the Omani drummers sing and dance. Suddenly, the bikers started, they rode so fast that I got a huge blast of wind in my face. Then all of the sponsor cars drove after them, then an ambulance, a few more cars, and another ambulance. At the end of the parade there was one more sponsor car that drove up and dumped 2 water bottles at us that the bikers had used! It was a mad scramble to get them, but I got one! We watched the bikers go and they took about 30 seconds to get out of our view. They were speedy!
We went into the sinkhole and ate lunch, swam and explored. Then we left. While we drove back there were all of the bikers water bottles on the side of the road. We stopped and picked them up. I can't believe that I have a water bottle that a famous biker actually used! I really liked this field trip! Look at our pictures, I think Zara is doing a picture blog.
- Tian
