Liwa Oasis hotels collection

Liwa keeps its fresh water beneath the dunes, resting on a layer of salt water, within reach of a well dug by hand. The palm groves follow it in a long crescent of villages open to the Rub al-Khali; the houses of the past, built of arish, woven palm fronds, let the wind through. Between the orange crests, the sabkhas spread hard white floors of salt to the foot of the Moreeb dune. Wilfred Thesiger came here across the desert with his Bedu companions. In July, the rutab, dates picked half ripe, give way under a finger.