Oman

09 Jun Oman

For Easter holidays we once again (over) packed the car and headed to the UAE to then continue our road towards Oman. After a stopover at friends in Abu Dhabi, we spent an afternoon in Al Ain slept there and finally arrived in Oman stopping on our way to visit the beehive tombs and settling for two night in Nizwa. We left early the next day in order to catch a nice light on Jebel shams and visited Nizwa fort on our way back.

Beehive tombs

Jebel Shams

Al-Hamra mud village

Niwza Fort

We had decided to cross the very scenic Wadi Bani Awf on our way to Muscat. The road was tricky and sometimes scary but definitely worth it:

We had lunch at the entrance of the small snake canyon and then enjoyed a small walk inside the canyon. Finally out of the Wadi, we went to see Nakhla fort and arrived quite late in Muscat.

Muscat was interesting to visit but as we aren’t big fans of cities we were happy to spend one day there: the fish market, the Corniche, the Souq, the Sultan’s Palace and Al Mirani fort. All these places are close to one another.

Our next day, we visited Wadi Shab and Wadi Tiwi. We loved the 1st one!! You park your car, jump on a boat and after 2 minutes you can begin your walk up the Wadi. We each carried one kid across the water but at times the water was up to our hips: what a challenge!

Wadi Tiwi was promoted as a “must see” but, although the views were fine we definitely preferred its sister Wadi.

My husband went to see the turtles during the night. You’re almost guaranteed to see at least one. The pictures are pretty bad as no flash photography is allowed to avoid disturbing the animals.

Sur

Turtles

We then spent a beautiful afternoon and a night in the desert. Compared to Saudi these “fake” Bedouin camps are a bit too “settled” for us but the site in itself as well as meeting with fellow travellers was nevertheless really enjoyable.

The next days were uneventful as we moved up North in 3 days stopping by the UAE to finally arrive to Musandan. This part of Oman is really different from the rest and worth a visit. It is actually called the Omani fjords:

The classic boat tour allowed us to enjoy the landscape in the company of dolphins:

After a night in Khasab we passed by the UAE (again) and reached the border in 3 days visiting Sharjah, some friends in Dubai and the Liwa Oasis at the Saudi border.

After 4500km in 16 days, we were all happy to settle back to our everyday life.