Musandam -1
Diletta Guarino was there to say welcome at Six Senses Zighy Bay. With enhanced roads some of the way and a splendid new UAE-Oman border crossing, it’s now under two hours’ drive to get to the16-year old resort from Dubai, by far the easiest way of arriving. Yes, it is possible to drive north from Muscat Airport, but frankly, going at seven o’clock angle from Dubai is so much quicker and much more enjoyable.
Six Senses sent a car for Girlahead, and the arrival was quite spectacular. The final half hour is through green-free mountain territory, an artwork as if trillions and trillions of bare Nizwa stones have been piled up in haphazard order, reaching to over a thousand metres above sea level (there’s an underlying feeling that if one stone fell down, all the others would ricochet down too). How on earth they put a zigzag road up over all this? At The Edge, at the top, you look down far, far below. You’ve got the ocean and in an enclave, right next to the ocean, the pale grey of the terrain is broken by the green oasis that is the 82-villa resort. There are some other houses nearby, but they’re like square boxes, monotone, same colour as the sand, no gardens, just personal sand areas staked around them. Yes, some people do paraglide down from up there on top, but Girl Ahead prefers to be driven down to arrive at the resort, or rather to drive through what looks like a mini souk. That is the outer entrance. And a hundred metres further on, there is the door of the main reception building.
It’s there on the steps, the GM waited. Girlahead was escorted in to a majilis-type arrival room, and after genuine welomes it was through, and down 16 rough stone steps and across 20m of bare sand to villa 54 (it’s marked in Arabic outside, but fortunately, English lettering is on one of its three steps). It’s the most convenient for the main block, only 20 metres away, down 16 rough stone steps. Rough is the word that comes up again and again throughout Six Senses Zighy Bay, but here ‘rough’ is used in a sustainable, natural way, rather than a derogatory term. So, up into 54’s main courtyard, and ahead to the left is the door to the villa itself. Straight ahead leads to the outside terrace, round table with heavy wooden chairs, and the pool, about 15 square metres, with two loungers and great privacy to a jareed date-palm fence up to a height of about two metres, which means palm trees and other buildings are visible beyond. You do feel as though you’re in an Omani village.
The villa has stone floors, just smooth enough to be able to walk over. Walls are rough plaster, cream. French windows lead to the pool courtyard. There’s a big Samson screen sitting on a cabinet next to a desk which has sockets over it. Three table lamps are unvarnished pottery showing, one each, an anthropomorphic animal bearing a rope-entwined shaft with a hide shade on top, all very rustic and very suitable. Two bedside chairs have big terracotta-and-sand fabric cushions, and there’s a low coffee table with a chessboard set into it. The eatertainment centre has a futuristic tea maker and a Coffee-B espresso machine, an Co-chocolates. A domestic fridge holds water, there’s a wine cellar, and standing nearby are bottles of Bombay Sapphire, Chivas Regal, and Absolute. There’s plenty of glassware, and a safe.
The bed has a pad rather than a deep mattress, and it’s incredibly comfy. An overhead fan hangs from rush roof. The bathroom has a big… stone look, jacuzzi tub, two sinks, good lighting, unmarked toiletries in ceramics, and lovely primary school look signs everywhere indicating how to turn the water cold to hot. Yes, there are signs of thoughtfulness, everywhere: there’s a big red fabric mat on top of a wood bureau for opening wheelies without damaging the item, there’s an adaptor with a USB and a USC.
Yes, thanks to the owners and their Dubai-based asset manager, Naim Maadad, Six Senses Zighy Bay is remarkably up to date. The spa, suitably set among courtyards and greenery, uses Subtle Energies, and, now in a separate location, there’s a remarkably good new fitness centre, with really good Technogym pieces. It’s aimed at wannabe thirty-somethings, working out people (and used by them too). Look into palm trees as you burn the calories needed for dinner….
