Road trip to Muscat

Firstly, how awesome is it that we can take a road trip to Muscat? Living here really is the omphalos of all the areas we want to travel to and those places get even easier to visit when you can take a quick weekend trip in the car with not a lot of advance planning.

Matthew and I have been eyeing a trip to Muscat for a while as they just opened a beautiful opera house there and had their first season last year with some pretty great productions and big names. Next season, we are hoping to be able to get a subscription and go for the weekend every so often which would be fab.

It's about a three hour drive to Muscat from our house through the mountains down to the coast and the scenery is pretty rugged slowing giving way to lush greenery. Oman is mostly tropical, especially on the coast, and it was a welcome change from the desert.

We were actually headed for the port area of town, Muttrah, so drove through the city center, past the lovely opera house and down to the coast. We found a dirt cheap (but luckily not dirty!) hotel right on the water and this was the view from the window of Matthew's and my room.

After a quick cat nap to refresh ourselves from the drive, we headed out to have a wander around the town and find some dinner.

Along some of the sea side shops, the boys had fun trying things on.

Muttrah is famous for their souk which is extremely old and although there are plenty of touristy bits to it, if you head deeper into the middle you can find some great stores. 

Matthew and I may have picked up a couple of little treasures to bring home. The fish is actually an old style lock. We have seen these before at a store here in town but at three times the price that we got this guy for. These locks are also in lots of other animal shapes, so we feel a little collection to hang in the hallway coming on. The picture is brand new, but hand-painted onto the page of an old book and not some delicate antique as the dealer tried to indicate - thankfully he didn't try to give us the 'antique' price too. It's going to go perfectly in our bedroom once we find a place to get it framed.

We were all ravenous by this point, so after a bit more wandering we came across a tiny little fish place with tables on the street. You go in and pick what looks good and they grill it for you. After the owner showed us the bright, fresh gills on some tuna the choice was made. Lots of salad, rice, the aforementioned tuna, some shrimps and calamari soon appeared along with a herd of street cats very interested in our dinner. However, it was so delicious and fresh that we wolfed it down too quickly for the cats to get a look in.

Bed was calling after this and although we wished that they could have been a little softer, the A/C was good and strong which was much needed for the heat. Living by the desert with almost no humidity, it's quite a shock to suddenly be walking in steamy, wet air again!

The next day after a quick breakfast of omelettes, parathas and tea at a little cafe, we were off to go to Wadi Shab which means Valley of Night and is often referred to as the Omani Grand Canyon. Well, it's a little smaller in scale, but none the less impressive although getting there is half the trick. You drive down the coast road and see a little sign for Wadi Shab. After getting off the motorway, and driving down this tiny track, you see a very steep descent for the road and then realize why when a tiny, little, blue, blink-and-you-would-miss-it, sign says please don't drive any further as the road isn't in use. Good to be so clearly sign posted on a steep, gravel covered track and but we very very happy we spotted the sign as when we finally found our way down we saw where the road we had previously been on actually led.

The sign was about 10ft in front of that red and white barrier. Yikes. The other route down to the wadi was through the next village which was also fairly interesting (read steep and terrifying) and strewn with wandering herds of goats going any which way they pleased, but we got there in one piece, changed into our swim things and headed in. As it was high tide when we got there, we took a boat across the mouth of the valley to get to where we could walk.

 There are rock pools all along the valley, but about twenty minutes in there is a very deep pool and then about two hours in, there are submerged caves and deeper pools. The boys and Matthew walked to the first deep pool while I stayed and read and splashed in a little pool closer by.

We'd like to come back here and hike to the caves with a picnic and go to Wadi Tiwi which is very close by and supposed to be equally lovely. When the three of them had enough of the deep pool, we all had another swim.

After a bit more splashing it was time to pack up as the ride home was going to be a bit longer since Wadi Shab is two hours out of Muscat. It was a short but sweet break and Oman is definitely on our must visit again and soon list!