15 stops to Nice

Just some shots of the airbnb in Muscat. This is a beautiful plant with succulent flowers that grows in this hot climate almost like a baobab tree.  These hills are very oriented like this as if the crust of the earth was lifted.  We arrived back in Muscat in our airbnb where we stay for 2 days.  The owner is a tour operator that takes tourists on desert treks. his apt. is lovely and he had 2 beers in the fridge for us!   I love these water towers that are in plastic on the roofs of most homes and evocative if crenellations of a castle.  Sunset last night.  We love this rooftop terrace when the sun gets low. Our last day in Oman we have a trip out to some islands off the coast, the Dimaniyat island.  We went snorkeling and the water was so nice!  I wore my gear as not to get sunburned but I looked like an omani all covered up, We did see about 30 or 40 green turtles grazing on seaweed. We tried to spot some black tip sharks but they didn’t turn up...

On our way out of Sur we stopped at a boatyard to see the building of a “dhow”. This is massive wooden boat. The work involved is mind boggling. I don’t know how they will be able to launch it. A snapshot of how towns look here. There seems to be a mosque every half mile in the cities. When they call to prayer it is a cacaphony of Allah akhba’s. Wadi means river or riverbed and there are many that dry up and run fast once it rains but others are always running out of rocks down from the mountains. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of us in the wadi but it was again a wonderful feeling after hiking in the sun for 45 min. to splash into cool water.  We swam and waded up the gorge to a small passage between two huge boulders and inside was a grotto with a waterfall on the inside.   Succulent flowers on the hike.

The morning we left the desert there was fog over the plain. It is humid in the morning and drops of dew cling to the leaves of plants. I guess that is how most of the animals get water because the well that is used for this camp is 130 meters deep. This was the dining hall where the gerbil was playing his games. He was so quick, he’d jump like a flash. The Indians love their cows but the Omanis love their camels even though they do eat them. “Strong like a camel”.  Bedouins keep these camels. Our next stop was Wadi Bani Khalid .   We hiked in to some refreshing pools of water that are connected by narrow gorges . So nice in this heat.  Actually it is cooler than normal for the Omanis.  May gets to be inbearable. This is a little something I found at the turtle reserve.  It is a turtle carapace.  I hope they are not eating them.!  It isn’t the time of year for the laying of the eggs so there were none on the beach. We did find lots of dead puffer fish ...

As I said in the end of this post, we left the high mountains (the highest in Oman 3000 meters) to stay in the desert. We stopped in a village called, Misfat al Abriyyin.  It is a very old town with thousands of date palm irrigated by a gushing spring.  We had some coffee (arabica) and delicious dates.  The winding narrow streets reminded me of some villages on the french coast near us.   There were signs about the pest, the red palm beetle that is destroying soothe date palms and this is a real disaster when it is the only product you export. On the way to our next stop I was looking at the many minarets and admiring the variety of styles. Sunset of our first night on the dunes. I thought of Maria Muldar’s song “Midnight at the oasis”.  The sand was sand blasting because the wind was up. I do understand the wearing of veils for wind and sun only if you want to. A view from near the bottom of the dune. I couldn’t make it to the top. It was like walking on ball b...