Discovering the Beauty of Oman

Oman

We arrived in the market of Al Mintrib just as the fury in the market was reaching its peak

Book Top Experiences and Tours in Oman:
If youʻre booking your trip to Oman last minute, we have you covered. Below are some of the top tours and experiences!
View All Experiences

has been number 1 on my bucket list since starting this trip.  Nowhere else enchanted me like this mysterious country on the south-eastern corner of Arabia, and yet all I knew about it was from books. 

I'd read it was unlike the rest of the Middle East: green and lush, a land of castles, mountains, and seaports, rumored to be the birthplace of Sinbad the Sailor and home to a maritime empire that once stretched from East Africa across the Indian Ocean.  But what would it be like today? 

Our plane touched down in the capital of Muscat, a port city that was surrounded by walls until the 1970s but is today jammed with traffic most hours of the day.  We spent three hours driving from the airport to our hotel.  Not the best first impression! 

 

Al Husn Hotel

Thankfully, the Al Husn Hotel more than made up for it.  Located 20 kilometers east of the city on a secluded islet on the Gulf of Oman, the property is designed like a traditional Omani fortress and decorated in the finest of Arabian luxury.  Greeted with orange-stuffed dates and cardamon-spiced coffee, we sunk into our surroundings and spent a day idling on the beach. 

Our schedule picked up quickly thereafter.  The next day we rushed across town for a radio interview with DJ Chris Fisher of 104.8 the Merge to talk about the BBB trip and our plans for Oman – to explore the three distinct regions of the mountains, the desert and the coast.

Discovering the Beauty of Oman

Muscat and Muttrah

First we set our sights on the old harbor of Muscat.  Though much of the city is marred by suburban sprawl, the old town embodies the beguiling Arab port town I imagined it to be.  Walking along the corniche, you see wooden dhows floating off shore, zig-zagging alleyways wedged between jagged crags, the smoke of frankincense wafting from the souk up towards round crenellated watchtowers parading over the harbor. 

 

Road Trip to the Hajjar Mountains

This scene only made us more eager to dive deeper into Oman.  The next day we linked up with two expats: Dutch-born Omani hand Ingmar, and Al, a recent arrival from the UK.  The four of us piled into a 4x4 and set our course due South-West, towards the Hajjar Mountains, perhaps Oman's most distinct feature.  They rise sharply from the Sahara and give the landscape a sense of permanence that contrasts the shifting sands of the desert.  Their peaks are severe; their valleys chiseled, and within their folds are lush oases and small hamlets. 

The abundance of green in such an arid climate means only one thing: water, the most precious resource in the desert.  Centuries ago, Omanis developed the falaj, essentially a long aqueduct that transports water from mountaintop springs to the plains below, making it possible to irrigate fields and sustain sizable populations.  We visited one such village, Al Himri, which largely consisting of mud houses and date palm plantations. 

Over the week we would also visit a number of wadis, the narrow water-filled gorges that once served as way-stations for thirsty Bedouin and today make for great swimming holes.  From the 1.5 km long Snake Gorge to the enormous Wadi Shab, we were never far from the promise of a refreshing swim.

Wadi Shab

The Wahiba Sands

Most of Oman is dry and arid.  Oman contains a small section of the Empty Quarter, known as the most desolate stretch of desert in Arabia. One of our true bucket list goals is to ride a camel across this region.  Unfortunately, our week-long sojourn didn't allow time for such an endeavor, and so we compromised with an overnight trip to a desert camp in the nearby Wahiba Sands

After a tranquil night under the stars, the owner Humayid woke us up with a surprise: it was the bi-annual celebration of Eid, an important Muslim holiday that essentially involves sacrificing a goat to Allah.  While we are too squeamish to watch the culmination of the festival, we figured that watching people buy and sell the goats would make for some interesting cultural insight.

Discovering the Beauty of Oman

The Eid Souq

We arrived in the market of Al Mintrib just as the fury in the market was reaching its peak.  Prices were low this year thanks to abundant rains and a surfeit of plump goats.  We wandered through the marketplace watching money and livestock change hands, children running and laughing while their fathers did business and their veiled mothers watched over their new property.  As the goats were loaded into pickup trucks, we walked deeper into the market changing our focus to the people we came across. 

Portraits, everyone wanted us to take portraits.  We were bombarded by young Omani boys dressed in mocha-colored dishdashas, their heads wrapped in red and white keffiyehs.  They approached us in groups, stood before our cameras with smile-less faces and stared into the depths of our lenses.  Then they ran away screaming and spraying cans of artificial snow into the air. 

Within the souk we saw faces that looked like they came from a story book of two centuries past.  Old men with thick beards, creased faces, and elegant turbans, leaning on their rifles as they sipped coffee on the floor of the souq, one hand calmly resting on the hilts of their khanjars

We left two hours later, our cameras full of images that will continue to enchant us for years to come.  The experience made the perfect high point of our trip, a reminder of how many walks of life remain unknown to us, despite our ever increasing travel experience.

The road led us back to Muscat to relax at the Sifaway Boutique Hotel, soaking up a bit of Omani sun as we assembled our videos, wrote these blogs and dreamt up future trips across the region.  Perhaps crossing the Empty Quarter by camel caravan?  Maybe sailing a dhow to Zanzibar?  Alex and I spoke of the possibilities all the way to the airport, dreaming as we set off for Africa.

 

Would you like to keep up with Alex and Marko’s travelling tales? Keep an eye on the blog and tune into BBBtv

Discovering the Beauty of Oman