Driving there - we took the kids out of school early and headed out around noon. The drive was pretty through the mountains. We passed a big bunch of loose camels crossing the highway. Crossing the border between the UAE and Oman is a challenge. We had been warned ahead of time that it might take a long time. Here are the steps
- Stop to have your car searched
- Stop to get your exit stamps in your passport
- Cross the border
- Park and go inside to get your visa for Oman. Since we have a UAE residency visa we can get an Oman visa on the spot.
- Stop one more time to have our passports checked and show our car insurance'
Once we got into Oman we realized that every round-about had a nice middle. We took pictures of several of them just for fun.
Luckily we found our hotel pretty easily. We stayed in a "4 star hotel" but we certainly would not call it that. Our first room was not acceptable as it was not bigger than a closet. We upgraded to a suite which had space for the kids blow up matress. FYI there are no double doubles (hotel term meaning 2 double beds in a room that will accommodate 4 people) in the middle east. You are not supposed to have more than 3 in any one room - kinda silly if you ask me. Any how the suite allowed us to be in one room. Once we were settled we went out on the town.
We wanted to find the beach and take a moonlite walk (it was a full moon night). We found a nice park that we poked around in for a while and several "cheesy light streets" as the girls called them but not the beach. We opted to get some dinner instead. Her are some photos of the lights.
The next morning we headed for the beach. As we got out of the car we noticed an awful smell. As we approached the water we saw many dead fish. Unforatunately the Omani beaches were experiencing the red tide. What a bummer! Even if we could get past the dead fish smell we couldn't get in the water. There are 2 big beaches in Muscat on either side of a penisula so we decided to hit the other beach, but it was the same.
We decided to explore other parts of the city, which turned out to be a great thing. There are ruins and absolutely beautiful moutains every where! Later we met Larry's friend from work and her boyfriend and we all went around Muscat exploring and then went to the souke. We didn't take any pictures at the souke because there were too many Omani people - you should to ask before taking their pictures.
The next day we drove to a small town called Niswa. In Niswa we saw a lot more Omani people. We visited the fort there and tried to visit the souk, but it was closed from 1-4 as many things are in Oman for siesta. The fort was very interesting and then we drove around town. Larry was an amazing driver navigating EXTREMELY narrow streets and of course the GPS would not work in the small down either.
We made a pit stop at Hoota Caves.
As we left the caves the sun was setting. A few hours into the drive home we hit a huge sand storm. The noise of the wind while driving was very loud. It looks much like driving through a snow storm only with fog.
