Where old meets new

"Stop!" says Hamdan, the more assertive of our two guides. We do as he says. We are well into our four-hour afternoon trek, beneath the western rim of Wadi Nakhar, known as the Grand Canyon of Oman. "Listen," Hamdan says. We do. Silence. I am aware of my heartbeat in my ears. Far above our heads, an eagle drifts on the air currents in an empty blue sky.

The canyon rim is 2,000m up Jabal Shams, Oman's highest mountain, the peak of which is another thousand metres up. Though the trail has its tricky parts, where we scramble across loose rocks, most of it is level. The canyon is austerely beautiful, too vast to photograph. And we have it completely to ourselves.

"A day I don't enjoy is a day wasted," says Hamdan. "I live life." With that, he's off again, striding in front, occasionally singing. We scramble after him. He stops to show us fossils embedded in the rocks. They are sea creatures; millions of years ago, this landscape was under the ocean. I'm glad we have guides: whenever I look back to see where we've walked, the path seems to have disappeared into the mountain face.

Jabal Shams is in the Jabal Akhdar mountains, in northern Oman's Western Hajar range. There are six of us touring the area in the brightly liveried 4x4s of Hamdan's company, Desert Thunder Travel. On our 150-mile road journey from Muscat, the country's capital, my perception of the dakhiliyah (interior) has changed - the phrase "it's rocky", though true, seems woefully inadequate. There are smooth rocks, jagged rocks, rocks in vertical stacks, rocks in sloping strata...

I stare at the canyon, whose colours reveal themselves slowly: purple, orange, duck egg blue. As the sun moves, the hues subtly alter. I could watch this changing canvas all day.

Back at the Jabal Shams Travelling and Camping Centre, on a plateau a short drive from the canyon rim, and where earlier we dumped our bags and lunched on mezze, we are greeted by a rabble of cute, shaggy goats.

Tourism is a relatively new phenomenon in Oman. Before the 1980s, visitors were discouraged, but the country's oil supplies are running out, and its ruler, Sultan Qaboos, has turned to tourism as an alternative source of revenue. Muscat's sandy beaches are the biggest draw, and those in Salalah, to the south, are becoming increasingly popular.

Adventure tourism was introduced at the turn of the century. Several tour operators now offer treks, and in the past six years trails have been marked throughout the country's mountains. New international trekking symbols have been painted at intervals on rocks, but they are superfluous to the locals who still follow cairns made up of little stones.

Trekking is marketed as an escape from the heat of the coast, particularly in summer. Elsewhere, desert camping tours, big game fishing, sailing and diving are also available.

Our camp sits in a dusty landscape dotted with scrubby plants and tiny trees. We are staying in Bedouin-style tents, although there are some basic-but-comfortable chalets with en suite showers. And though we needed our 4x4 to get here - the last bit of the journey was a dusty track - the road will soon reach all the way to the camp. We're not talking mass tourism here - a Grand Canyon-style glass-floored observation deck can be ruled out and, as the Omanis I meet are keen to point out, their country is not Dubai.

After dinner, Hamdan and our other guide, Mahmood, light the campfire. Stories are told and songs sung, our guides contributing a couple of their own favourites. The sky is pricked with bright stars, and my jumper (the temperature dips below 15C at night) has taken on a not-unpleasant bonfire smell. I feel like a proper camper, until I trip over the suitcase in my tent.

Next day we're off sightseeing. At the bottom of the mountain is the abandoned 300-year-old village of Ghul, where we explore crumbling stone houses. Nearby, we visit Al Hotta cave with its weird stalactite formations, and the pretty town of Al Hamra, famous for its well-preserved, mud-brick 19th-century townhouses. In the town museum we are treated to a traditional Omani lunch of curried chicken and rice, eaten communally, on the floor, with our hands, followed by dates and cardamom-spiced coffee.

We then head east to Nizwa, the interior's main town, with a population of about 80,000. Back in the sixth and seventh centuries it was Oman's capital. I buy Iranian saffron in the part old-and-grungy, part tarted-up-for-tourists souq. When we climb Nizwa's fort I appreciate what an oasis the mountain-ringed city is, festooned with date palms.

Oman, with its stone walls and satellite dishes, was made for that travel brochure cliche, "where the old meets the new". A living demonstration of this is the patient, ever-helpful Mahmood, who accessorises his standard Omani gent's casualwear of rosewater-scented white dishdasha (a flowing, ankle-length robe) with black Ray-Bans, complex facial hair and an ever-present mobile phone. Omanis are always on their mobiles, which have replaced the boomerang-shaped ceremonial khanjar dagger as the final touch to their outfit.

For our next day's trekking - a two-hour ramble through the villages of the Saiq Plateau, the fruit bowl of the Jabal Akhdar mountains - our guides have ditched the dishdashas for T-shirts, shorts and walking shoes. But Hamdan has retained his massar (turban) which, as he demonstrated over dinner, can be wrapped up in a variety of ways, depending on your tribe. Hamdan's desert tribe favours a sandstorm-deflecting arrangement. Muscat-born Mahmood wears a simpler kumma, an embroidered skullcap.

We are following a falaj, a narrow water channel originating in the mountains that irrigates the terraces. On these we see red pomegranate trees, rose bushes and apricots. A pile of huge, healthy-looking garlic bulbs awaits collection.

It's sunset and we are sitting on a rock at the cliff edge, looking west across the top of Wadi Muaydin at the villages and terraces we've trekked today. It's called Diana Point, because the Queen of Hearts camped here with Prince Charles in the early days of their marriage. The scene - dusk falling over plain white houses and the green terraces, the sun sinking over the horizon - is as beautiful as anything I've ever seen.