Late on Wednesday morning we checked out of the Intercontinental Hotel in Muscat and drove round to the Muttrah Souk on the Corniche. Not many stalls were open because it was Eid, but there were still plenty of fascinating shops and people to gaze at. After Rodney had modelled an Omani hat and scarf, we did buy a set, they only cost 3 Rials, so we can’t have bought quality stuff. I also bought a little tin prayer holder which I might use to leave lists inside for Rodney to do.
Two hours of driving south west along the far end of the Hajar Mountains brought us to Nizwa, quite a large and very old city. We went straight to the Nizwa Fort, Oman’s most visited national monument which was built in 1668 A.D. by Imam Sultan Bin Saif Al Ya’rubi. It was a beautiful place and it was a shame it closed at 4pm, not giving us a lot of time to really investigate the place, but we still saw so much of interest.
Our next two night’s accommodation was booked at the Dreamhouse Apartments and we were all keen to see if it would be a dream, or a bit of a nightmare. It was brilliantly badly decorated with ornaments, pictures and furniture that just didn’t go together. It was crazy, but we loved it. The bathroom which Rodney and I had, contained a western style toilet right next to a hole-in-the-ground toilet which was actually within the shower area !!! Conveniently, you could complete two functions at the same time and flush it all away. No don’t go there! All up in the room, there were nine taps, two on the water tank, two on the sink, two in the shower, two for the hole-in-the-ground toilet flush and one for the hose to rinse after using the hole-in-the-ground toilet. But it was all clean and tidy, so along with a good laugh, it was a great place to stay. After washing the dust off in the whacky bathroom, we went out to dinner at the Golden Tulip Hotel to celebrate Alison’s birthday.
The next morning, we drove out through Al Hamra and on to Wadi Ghul where Ramsay turned off the main road and put the Pajero in to 4-wheel drive. After the rain on Monday, there was still water running down the wadi bed and we rocked and rolled along the bottom of the valley, much of the time through water. After about 7kms of winding left and right through the spectacular steep sided gorge, we reached An Nakhur and couldn’t drive any further. We wandered around the deserted houses to stretch our legs and de-rattle our brains, before tumbling back down the canyon for a picnic and finally back on to the main road.
The road began to climb higher, as we took the road leading up to Jebel Shams. We took a brief side tour down to the village of Misfat Al Abriyya and looked down on a falaj, an intricate network of man-made watercourses that led out of the palm trees down in the gully.
Then we continued climbing gradually, right up to 1,900m to Jebel Shams, the highest point of Oman. The views from up there were brilliant; we looked out at the high, jagged peaks and down in to the canyon that we had previously driven through. There were quite a few tourists up there, but the place still seemed desolate and empty.
Back in Nizwa, we had to crawl in a queue of traffic through the city to the shopping-centre where we decided to indulge in a genuine Arabic Pizza Hut dinner. Look, we were all tired and hungry and with the supermarket tills dealing with long queues, we decided not to bother cooking at the apartment. Alison would like it noted that she won the Scrabble game that evening and without the aid of any alcohol….
On Friday morning we arrived at the souk too late for any real activity, but there were still a few chickens being passed by their feet to their new owners. I tasted dates for humans, not the ones for goats and camels, yes there is a difference, though we’re not quite sure if the ‘human’ ones are just fresher. Alison bought pomegranates and white oranges, which sadly turned out to be completely tasteless, and then we stopped for coffee in a cool café. At midday the car was loaded, we farewelled The Dreamhouse and then driving out of Nizwa, we passed the Hungry Bunny restaurant with the catchphrase of “I’m So Hungry”, which we all yelled out for the very last time.
Our first stop of the day was at Bahla, where a stroll around the outer walls of the old fort, in long black trousers and a navy top, was rather sweat inducing at 38°C. But it was another fascinating fort to look at and the sky was such a radiant blue.
At Jabreen we ate bread rolls and fruit under the shade of a tree outside the high walls of the Jabreen Castle. Only 1 Rial for two people and we entered the most fabulous building. The palatial residence was built in 1680 by Imam Bil’arub bin Sultan and stands tall in the surrounding flat plains next to the Akhdar mountain range. Some of the rooms have gorgeous, decorated ceilings and interestingly, many of the windows in the rooms are at floor level, which makes sense when you are sitting on a cushion on the floor; you can still see out to the views beyond.
At Ibri we stopped to buy more fuel for the car (19 pence, or 30 cents per litre) and London Ice Creams covered in Belgian chocolate for us; tre delicious. From there the mountains slowly became hills and then gradually faded to a low ridge to the right of us. On the flat land there were just scrubby bushes and flat-topped acacia tortilis trees. Houses seem to appear randomly and every so often there would be a group of dwellings gathered around a clump of palm trees. At Al Ain we reached the United Arab Emirates border and we all had our fingers crossed that the immigration ‘fun’ would not take as long as it had four days previously. Exiting Oman turned out to be a lot quicker than entering, and entering the U.A.E was a bit slow, but the whole procedure only took one hour this time, instead of three. Ramsay soon had his foot down on the accelerator and we were speeding across Abu Dhabi. A huge moon, not quite full, hung low in the sky as the sun set on the opposite side of the car and turned the sky and the sand a soft shade of pink. The hills in the distance became faded grey outlines and we entered the outskirts of the Abu Dhabi city area in the dark.
