 |
| Heaven...... |
For the Prophet's birthday, we got a 3-day holiday, so Kim and I decided to head to Muscat, the capital of Oman. We had heard the beach was very nice, and I was READY for some beach time!!
We flew out of Al Ain "International" Airport....ha-ha! It is a small airport, and we were the only flight leaving that night. We had to catch a bus at the airport terminal to our airplane on the tarmac...a distance of maybe 50 yards! Kim and I had a good laugh as we looked out the bus window at the plane and talked about how much faster it would be to just walk to the plane! The good news: Everybody who was flying was there, so we left 20 minutes early. Gotta love a small airport!!
We arrived in Muscat and had a slight delay at the airport getting our visas, but soon we were in a taxi and headed for the hotel. The trip time from our flat in Al Ain to our hotel in Oman was a total of less than 4 hours!!
When we woke up the next morning, we had the most gorgeous view and a sumptuous deck that overlooked the mountains, pool, and ocean.
 |
| View looking to the left off our deck: the surrounding mountains and the city |
 |
View looking off our deck to the right: the only thing that spoils the view is the
palatial home being built by one of the country's ministers. |
We stayed at the Crowne Plaza, located on the cliff top in Qurum Heights. It has a private beach that looks across the water at one of the local public beaches.
 |
| View looking straight out. Around to the left side and down the coast you can see the public beach and the city of Muscat. This is how calm the water looked for the first 2 days of our stay. |
 |
This is looking across the water at the public beach.
Here you can see Omani women in their beachwear. :) |
Breakfast was included with the room (and also had a nice selection of bacon and ham, which we seldom see in the UAE), so we ate a leisurely breakfast and strolled down to the beach to do some exploring. On the beach below our cliffs there was a cave to one side.
 |
| Kim explores the cave on our beach |
 |
| Crabs were all over the beach the first day. Then, they disappeared, and we never saw them again. Hey, Heather and Cory, guess we "busted the crabs" too well!! |
Kim's most exciting moment of the day came when he found a vertebra of some huge creature. We're not sure what it is, but we're thinking it's so large it has to be a whale!! The Humpback and Orca whales travel up and down this coast. There are also many dolphins, but it looks too big for that. Of course, we decided it could also be some ancient dinosaur, because it almost seems more fossilized than bone-like. LOL :)
 |
| "Whale" vertebra??? And.....the proud discoverer |
We pretty much just sat around the whole day, dipping in and out of the pool, in and out of the ocean, and in and out of the pool bar ~ ha-ha!! At sunset we went to the outdoor balcony for a drink before dinner. Later that night was the seafood grill at the hotel, an unbelievable smorgasbord of seafood that you select and then they grill as you stand by the ocean and watch. There was lobster, prawns, mahi-mahi, octopus, and various other seafood delicacies! They had all the trimmings to go with it, too! Desserts were amazingly beautiful and so numerous. I swear I heard them calling my name......so I tried about 6! Later, there were fireworks we could watch from the deck. A great ending to the day!
 |
| This is Kim's attempt at sunset photography: Don't you just love my head-dress? I feel like a Native American with my "do." |
 |
| These are the fishermen heading out for some evening fishing. |
Day 2 was planned to be more strenuous. Kim had booked a tour with a local Omani man, named Nasim, to take us on a tour of Wadi Shab (sort of like a desert arroyo in the Western U.S.). The Wadis were the bedouin's source of water as they traveled the desert. The water is partially underground, but there are large sections of the wadi that are deep pools of beautiful greenish-blue.
As we drove to the wadi (about a 2-hour drive), our guide told us about the history of the area. We traveled through the East Hajer mountains, a 700 km range that extends from the West Hajer mountains in Al Ain.
 |
| Didn't get any great shots of some of the higher mountains because we were driving. This was shot from the car and doesn't do justice to the size!! |
Along the tops of the mountains, the ancients would bury their dead by digging tombs on the very tops. Our guide said they looked like honeycombs up close. One of the roads leading up the side of a nearby mountain looked particularly dangerous. Nasim said he likes to drive it, but you can't ever use your breaks coming down or the car will skid off the edge due to the loose soil and rocks ~ that sounds like a nightmare ride to me, but it's one of the tours he offers......um......no, thanks!
There were lots of wild donkeys along the way, and apparently they hang around in the wadis.
 |
| Our guide told us this donkey is kept inside the wadi for the people who still live nestled up in the mountains along here. They use him to transport heavier items. I felt sorry for him standing in the hot sun. On our way out, we found him tethered inside a cave where it was much cooler! |
Frankincense grows here in Oman on the side of the mountains facing the desert because it needs the heat to grow. It doesn't grow on the sea side, which is where we were driving. We didn't see any, but Kim wants to see some growing wild and being harvested. We bought some back when we were in Morocco over Christmas, but he wants to see it in its native habitat.
We passed through huge mountains. Jebel Shams ("Mountain of the Sun") is the highest point in Oman at 3009 meters. We traveled through the fishing village of Quriyat and then to the small town of Tiwi. There, we got our first overhead view of Wadi Shab. It was a Palm, Banana, and Mango Plantation a while back, so the terraced remnants of the trees are still there. Apparently a cyclone hit and did major damage. Local villagers still farm the area, so there is an aflaj, or watering system, which carries water throughout the wadi from one small garden to the next. We actually walked along the top edges of the aflaj for some sections where the terrain was especially rough.
 |
| Kim swims in one of the pools at the wadi |
 |
| This breathtaking view was at one of the diving spots ~ the water is very deep, but such a clear blue you can see all the way to the bottom. |
 |
| Another gorgeous aquamarine swimming hole..... The lapped shale and rock here reminded me of scalloped lace along the bottom hem of a woman's skirt |
 |
| One of the small buildings where the Palm Plantation caretakers would stay |
 |
| This picture is looking down from the bridge onto one of the palm groves. This was the small boat we took from where we parked across to the other side. Some of the guys from the nearby small town of Tiwi make a living by ferrying people across to the other side of the wadi where walking is accessible. At the end of the day, when we left, the tide was out and you could walk across this part. |
 |
| This picture is looking back toward the bridge from the palm grove. Just past the bridge the water opens up into the Gulf of Oman. |
At the very end of all the swimming holes, we swam through a very narrow keyhole that opened up into a partially submerged cave with a waterfall. I was a little scared to swim under some of the walls, not knowing where I would end up or if I could hold my breath until I emerged inside a part where I could breathe, but that was why we had our guide! He really helped us to experience some things I would never have tried on my own! We couldn't take our camera to this part because there was no way to keep it dry. Maybe one day we'll return with an underwater camera to get some pics of the final, most amazing section!
I learned a good bit from our guide about the flora and fauna of this area. Here are some close-up pictures of the date palms. You can see the date palm blossoms beginning to sprout and then the bundled part, showing that the palm has already been pollinated.
 |
| Here are the small buds of the date palm (yellow, in the center of the palm). Each of these will turn into a date. |
 |
| These have to be hand-pollinated, so you can see where the buds were bundled together to be pollinated and then left so the workers know this palm is ready. |
 |
| This is an Arabian Toad (no frogs in Oman!). These toads live in the wadi and dig down into the gravel where they can remain for months or years, depending on the water conditions. They go into a state of torpor (like hibernation) for long periods of time. We saw hundreds of these at one of the pools. |
Here is another strange wadi creature:
 |
| This is me at the end of the long day. I wore my swim suit under long pants and a t-shirt. For most of the day, I swam in this whole outfit. Here I have my pants rolled up and my hair and clothes are soaking wet from my last dip in the water, but it was a hoot! |
 |
| This shows what the dryer walking sections were like.....It was not all lush, blue-green pools of water!! It was about an hour's fairly intensive hike in and then another hour's hike back out. |
On our way home, we stopped at the Biman Sinkhole, a collapsed mountain filled with sea water. It is now a limestone crater with steps leading to the bottom. People go there for picnics and a swim.
 |
| Biman Sinkhole |
There were lots of birds around our hotel. There were parakeets, and Kim's favorite, Hekyll and Jekyll (his friends from Hawaii), but I didn't take a picture of them. Sorry, Kim! :(
 |
| These are rose-ringed parakeets in the palm tree by my beach chair |
 |
| This is a Great Blue Heron perched in the bushes along the channel that runs between our hotel and the opposite beach |
Our last day we decided to stay until the last minute to catch our plane home. We spent all day sitting under the palm trees up on the cliffs. I had my camera out and was taking pictures of the rough seas (because it had been so smooth up until that time).
 |
| This is looking down from the cliffs at the small beach of our hotel. (View from my beach chair) The waves were really kicking up! |
 |
| Wave action.... |
 |
| Looking across the channel down toward the city..... |
I saw a couple who appeared to be having a tough time. They were in the channel between our beach and the public beach, and apparently the undertow was very strong. After a few minutes I decided they looked like they were in trouble. I ran to the pool to tell the lifeguard I thought someone needed help.
He didn't hesitate. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and called for back-up; then he took off running down the steps to the beach. As he got there, he ran into the water and headed for the boy and girl. In a minute, several other lifeguards joined him. They managed to pull the two to shore just in time! The boy collapsed on the beach and the paramedics arrived about that time.
 |
| The first lifeguard on the scene makes a big leap into the water as he heads out into the channel |
 |
| Getting closer to shore: they had ropes on the life preservers and people on shore were helping to pull them in while the two lifeguards kept them in the preservers. |
 |
| The girl was not quite as bad as the boy and was able to walk with assistance; the boy had apparently been holding her up and had used all his energy |
 |
| Collapsed, but still alive! |
 |
| Paramedic in the white shirt with his medical bag checking on the boy |
What a great ending to a rather scary episode! We had a few hours left on the beach, so we used it wisely....
 |
| Mmmmmm....delicious! |
and then we headed back to reality!
We loved Oman and plan to return when we can!! :)
Definitely Heaven on Earth!!
Abu Dhabi Time