I Heart Oman

Over 2,000 kms & too many buffet’s later…… I love Oman, what an amazing trip we had & both babes were fantastic, incredibly cruisey.  Day one we drove through Hatta to the Oman border and on to Sohar for a picnic.  Then we continued down the coast stopping at Barka and visited the Halban Tombs which are as old as the oldest pyramids in Egypt.  The drive was beautiful & it was so refreshing to be on holiday in Oman.  We arrived in Muscat in the evening to find out we wouldn’t be enjoying the stunning Omani beaches on this trip due to the ‘Red Tide’ which is a toxic algal bloom that’s been around the East coast of the UAE & Oman for over a month.  The ocean was a dark browny red & stinky.   The Dive Centre was a great place to stay, barasti huts on the beach & perfect for families, I highly recommend it!

Day 2 was Saturday.  A & C headed off dolphin watching.  They saw hundreds!  We spent the rest of the day lazying about & in the evening shopped for treasures at Muttrah souq & drove around checking out Muscat which is really pretty surrounded by the mountains.

On Sunday we headed to Nakhal.  We bought some halwa for our picnic (Arabic dessert) & explored the castle.  Then we drove part way up Wadi Bani Awf for lunch with the billy goats.  C did some goat hearding & then we had a quick drive through Rustaq before heading back to ODC, it was a full day driving with more amazing scenery.  We were hoping to swim in the fresh pools up in the wadi but we didnt make it far enough & couldn’t swim at the hot pools either as being female I “would be shy” in front of the Omani men there.

On Monday I was ready  to try diving but couldn’t because of my asthma (I needed a medical cert) so we had a day free from driving, hanging out at ODC.  The next day we got up early & drove further down the coast to Sur, once again we had stunning mountain & coastal views.  From there we headed in to Wahiba Sands and a further30km into the desert where we stayed at 1,000 Nights Desert Camp.  The camp was cool & we had a beautiful Omani dinner, they cooked Shuwa which was lamb that had been cooking underground for 24 hours.  It was freezing over night in our tent but the day soon warmed up when the sun came up on Wednesday. Another huge day driving from Wahiba Sands all the way to the Sayq Plateau where we stayed at the hotel up the top of Al Jebel Al Akhdar.  Thursday was our last day & we were still a loooong way from home.  Before we left the mountain we visited the abandoned mountainvillage Bani Habib then spent the day driving home stopping at Ibri.

There was so much to do & see, lots of things had to be left off the list until next time. C kept commenting ‘this holiday is really nice” and it did him good too!  The photos don’t do it justice, it was really amazing.  Will work on fixing the pics!

4 comments December 14, 2008