We love Oman. We had taken 2 vacations to Muscat since living in Bahrain and decided to go back to Oman again and explore Salalah, on the south coast, this time. There was a week long "Eid" or festivity or holiday, in November, so off we went! It was a great combination of relaxing at a nice resort and exploring the area.
Salalah is the second largest city in Oman, known for its frankincense trade and lush, greenness amidst all the surrounding desert. In the summer, it receives some of the monsoon rains from India. So it wasn't still super green and lush when we were there but definitely more naturally green than anything else I've seen in the Gulf.
And it is considered to be the land of Bountiful from the Book of Mormon where Nephi built the ship and his family sailed to the Americas. It was fun to research this aspect before going and then see it for ourselves.
Our hotel was decorated for the occasion
It was a great place to stay with kids with two pools geared just for them and a great playground and splash park.
Charlie not parting from his trains even in the pool.
This picture just screams of childhood joy and free-spiritedness
Charlie enjoying the splash park.
The slide was perfect for my little ones.
Davey had fun making friends at the pool and organizing water games for them all.
The pools were so great we only walked out to the beach once.
Just two minutes' drive from our hotel were some amazing ruins dating to before 2000BC. The city was a trade hub along the Frankincense Trail.
Part of Al Balid City
Evidence of the ancient city was sprinkled everywhere around the town, still so untouched and it was obvious that so much is still undiscovered. It amazes me to walk around these places and try to imagine life at that time.
A pretty mosque in town
Trying to capture some of the landscape
Enjoying some fresh coconut water from a streetside vendor
Charlie's turn
Another pretty mosque in town
For our first excursion, we took an afternoon drive down to Mughsail beach. The beaches are so beautiful and there's a blowhole where the water is said to jet up to 90 feet high. I say "said to" because both times we tried to catch it we must have timed it wrong. But it was still a beautiful spot to check out. And to people-watch. For the first time since living in the Middle East (!), we saw a group of about 20 muslim men lay out a blanket and perform their afternoon prayers.
The boys checking out a cave on the walk to see the blowhole.
A beautiful glance up the beach from the blowhole in Mughsail.
Another day we took a drive to the town of Rakhyut, which was very interesting and felt very adventurous as the town is located so close to Yemen (less than 15 miles) that you have to pass through a military checkpoint and present your passports. I must say I was intimidated.
See these switchbacks? It was quite a drive to Rakhyut.
The mountains we passed over were incredible. They seem to follow the coastline all along the southern part of Oman and you drive way up on the tops with dramatic steep drops down to the ocean on one side and valley on the other, also seeming to drop back to sea level.
Only in this part of the world...
And, seriously, this sign was needed. This part of Oman seemed to have a camel problem. There were camels everywhere. Some of them looked like they were taken care of and belonged to someone (rope reigns on them and healthier) but many/most bore no signs of ownership. There were seriously so many everywhere and the inhabitants of this region so sparse that I can't imagine someone able to keep track of them all and having a consistent or commercial use for them. Transporting any product of/from them would be so costly, this area is so remote.
Well, hello camel.
We were stopping all the time for these things!
Our first view of Rakhyut.
More on that in the next post...
