Monday 10th April 2006

Breakfast was a buffet similar to previous days with cereal and pancakes, here they had “beef bacon” (?!), I did not try that, as we were in a hurry as we were checking out again very early. I was pleased to be in the same 4x4 again with Mohammed as our driver, especially for the drive back down the mountain! At least I felt safe with him at the wheel! So we made our descent again in convoy, again the views took our breath away, and Mohammed had to slow down at one point as June was taking a photo out of the window. However the trip back down seemed a lot quicker than when we had been going (they always do when you are going back!).

We arrived at the town of Nizwa, to visit the Souqs and the fort there. We agreed to meet at 11.00 a.m. so we had about an hour and a half to look around the souqs. We split into smaller groups, and I was with Rhona, Mary and June and Stan and Lyn. I followed them to the Fish Souq, but no way could I go in, the smell was just too strong! Why on earth anyone wants to go and look at a load of raw fish is totally beyond me! I waited outside and watched a small, thin black cat that was in prime position outside the fish souq. Then we went to the Date Souq, and Rhona bought some dates in a plastic tub, but mostly the dates were in woven straw sacks. We speculated on whose job it was to weave those sacks. The air smelled very sweet and sticky with the aroma of all those dates.

We crossed the street to the Fruit and Vegetable Souq. These souqs were much more like our indoor markets than other Eastern souqs I have been to before. The fruit and vegetable souq was in a large hall, however some men had just set stalls up in the street outside selling fruit and vegetables as well. We could see sacks of onions and potatoes from India. Inside we tried to find the Spice Souq but that was not on today. So we looked around at all the fruit and vegetables, there were bananas straight off the tree and a few vegetables we did not even recognise. We noticed a strange, dried cactus, which one market trader explained to us, in quite good English, that they boil the pieces up in water and make an infusion, and they use this for coughs and breathing problems. As we walked around, we saw many bottles (glass Vimto bottles) of the local rosewater including some from Jebel Akhdar. So those guys we saw doing that extraction yesterday are not the only ones using that method!

We saw a stall outside selling honey – some of it was date honey, but the containers were just too big for us to take back (some of that was in Vimto bottles as well!). There was some in big plastic tubs over a kilo, and it still had honeycomb in it.
Then we found a shop selling smaller jars of the honey, and many different flavours of coffee beans, and they grind them to order, together with cardamom if desired.

Rhona, June and I took a quick walk up to the fort but decided there was not enough time to go in, and so we found a grocers shop and bought bottles of chilled water for everyone on our way back to the vehicles.

We waited in the shade while everyone arrived – the car park itself was very exposed and the heat now was baking hot out there, at least 30 C. Then we got back into the 4x4’s and off we went. We made quick progress back towards Muscat, past all those amazing rock formations again, and we went straight to Seeb Airport for our flight to Salalah.

The internal flight to Salalah was with Oman Airways. We checked in and after a couple of hours wait, during which we had another makeshift picnic in the waiting hall to finish off most of the food that we still had left rather than keep carrying it all around! However, to my surprise we got fed on the plane as well, which considering it was only an hour and fifteen minutes flight, the cabin crew did very well to serve us all with lunch of rice and curried chicken, and a dessert like cheesecake. We arrived at Salalah and we were met by a young Omani man with a big sheet of paper saying the words “British Society of Perfumers” and Omantravel.

We noticed how much greener the landscape around Salalah is – there were literally plantations of bananas and palms everywhere, coconut palms, and by the side of the road were stalls selling the coconuts and bananas. Salalah is in the South of the country, in the Dhofar region, which is famed for the frankincense which grows in the areas around Salalah.

We arrived at the Beach Villas Hotel. This hotel was literally straight onto the beach, and there were miles of white sand as far as you could see, and no-one on it! We checked into our rooms and had a little while to rest until going downstairs to have dinner which was a buffet dinner at this hotel, in the area by the poolside. By this time it was dark, and we watched in amazement as bats kept swooping over the swimming pool and taking a drink before flying off again. One poor little one hit himself on the side of the pool and could not get out, so Lyn took her shoe off and fished him out and put him on the side to recover. When we looked later he was gone, so he must have been alright after all, probably just had a headache! But later on the darker it got, some of these bats looked quite big with a wingspan of at least a foot!

The buffet meal this evening was absolutely delicious, real home-cooked food but still in an Indian style. There was vegetables in yogurt, flaky pancakes/bread which I thought were similar to the Roti I had in Malaysia but other people were calling them paratha. There were several curries of meat and chicken in sauces and pilau rice as well. For dessert we had a scoop of ice cream.

Following dinner a few of us decided to go for a walk along the beach, those white sands were extremely inviting and the moon was out! Since the sand was getting into my sandals I took those off straight away and before long we reached the sea. We saw where some little crabs had made mounds of sand by digging and shortly after we did see several small crabs. With much hilarity we were dipping our toes into the water and paddling about but the waves were quite choppy and I got the bottom of my trousers soaking wet! How wonderful it felt, to be here, on a moonlit beach, having such a laugh! I could have stayed there for hours!

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