We awoke to find our hotel without electricity. No matter; we didn’t need it.
After breakfast, we had just a short time to visit the Nizwa Fort, depositing our postcards in a postbox on the way.
The fort was quite good (I don’t always appreciate historical military sites), with authentically furnished rooms, complete with carpets, cushions and pottery. Its ramparts made for good views of the city, but it was difficult to get a good angle on the mosque for a photograph.
It was 11:30 by now and we had to be on our way, so we returned to the car, tanked up with petrol (cheaper per litre than water, as ever) and sped off in the direction of Muscat, some 180 km removed.
Some time after 13:00, we arrived at Seeb International Airport, where I dropped the girls and our bags before parking the car and meeting them inside the terminal. There, we checked in for our 15:00 flight to Salalah.
The airport has this fantastic shrink-wrapping machine, which is manned by someone who actually knows what he’s doing. You give him your fragile item, in our case Eloïse’s car seat and he professionally shrink-wraps it for you, ready for your flight. Sarah was particularly impressed at the effeciveness of this gadget. The service isn’t free, but it’s very useful and a bargain at the price, which was 700 baizas in our case.
On the other side of the security screening, there was a pretty good duty-free area, sporting the usual booze, fags, perfume, electronics, CDs (including Arabic music, of course), DVDs, etc. Costa Coffee was also here, along with a Turtles bookshop.
There was just enough time for some food before we had to head to our gate to board our Oman Air flight. A shuttle bus ferried us the 100 m or so across the tarmac to the waiting plane. Why we couldn’t have walked such a small distance is beyond me.
The flight with Oman Air was a professional one, I must say. Even though it was only an 80 minute flight, it included a full meal, and a good one at that. If we’d known about that, we wouldn’t have eaten at the airport.
I’d like to say the terrain we flew over from Muscat to Salalah was interesting, but it was a 1000 km expanse of nothingness. That’s one of the main reasons why we decided not to tackle the trip by road; that and the time it would take us to do so.
The south of the country is radically different to northern Oman. That was evident even from the moment we disembarked, when we were hit by the humidity of the air. It’s tropical here and feels much like Hawaii.
The similarity to Hawaii doesn’t end with the humidity, either. Once we’d picked up a new hire car, this time a Toyota Landcruiser 4×4, we drove towards our hotel past juice and coconut stands, lush gardens and palm tree-lined avenues.
Once we’d checked in, we had a brief walk along the beach as the sun set. Large breakers were crashing along the shore and the red flags were out to signal dangerous swimming conditions.
Sarah wanted to get the lay of the land so that we could plan how much time we’d need in town tomorrow, so we piled back into the car and drove into town for a look around. There wasn’t time to get out and explore, so we just drove around and got a feel for the place.
On the way back, we stopped at a coconut stand and ordered a nut. The man behind the counter whacked off the top of a coconut, stuck a straw inside, and handed us the nut to drink from. He then welcomed us to Salalah and informed us that there was no charge for the coconut. That’s what I mean about people being friendly in this country.
Another example: During the flight, I had chatted with the man next to me. Whilst waiting for our luggage to appear on the conveyor belt inside the terminal, the same man gave me his name and telephone number and told me to call him if we needed any assistance with anything during our stay in Salalah. That kind of offer would get you a bemused, suspicious look in the West, but here it’s just another indication of the incredible warmth with which the Omanis receive visitors to their country.
There’s a very pleasant buzz to this town, as there was in Nizwa. Together, they are definitely my two favourite Omani towns so far.
We had dinner at the hotel, down by the beach. The sound of invisible waves breaking in the darkness is always a great aural background for dining.
Tomorrow, we’ll be up bright and early to explore the souqs of Salalah and the surrounding countryside.