After breakfast, we filled up with petrol and headed east out of Salalah, through the town of Taqa, past Wadi Dirbat and towards the village of Tawai Attair, just outside of which there’s a gigantic sinkhole.
By the time we arrived, Eloïse had gone to sleep, some two hours earlier than she normally does. All of the exercise and adventure must be taking it out of her.
The sinkhole turned out to be down a steep and rocky climb. Because Eloïse was sleeping happily in the car, I made the descent alone, spotting a very large lizard (the largest I’ve ever seen in the wild) on the way.
The sinkhole was so deep, that I couldn’t see all the way into it from my vantage point. There’s supposed to be water at the bottom, but I could only see as far as birds flying around in its gaping maw. Further down, everything looked black.
I climbed back up the rocks and we continued on our way over 16 km of graded track along a plateau. This carried us to the top of Jebel Samhan, with lovely views out to the coast.
The descent of the range was steep, for 4×4 only, and carried us to the coastal road, where we turned left and headed towards Mirbat. Mirbat has definitely seen more prosperous days. Entire neighbourhoods have fallen into decline and buildings stand decrepit and dilapidated. The roads in these neighbourhoods have decayed to the extent that they are now, to all extents and purposes, unsurfaced. The area makes for an interesting drive, however.
Turning down towards the beach, we stopped in front of the Mirbat Castle and went inside. A loud voice was emanating from one of the rooms by the entrance. As the doorway came into view, we saw a bunch of men, sitting on the floor, sipping tea and animatedly discussing some topic or other.
They beckoned to us to come inside, so we took off our shoes and joined them in the room. One man poured us some tea, which turned out to be very, very sweet; I don’t like tea in any case, but as I’ve said before, it’s very impolite to refuse hospitality here.
The conversation quickly turned to children. Everywhere we go in Oman, people’s first or second question about Eloïse is whether she’s our only child. Logical, because I’m no spring chicken (nor is Sarah, for that matter) and people expect you to have several by our age. One of the men in our group had six children and his wife was now pregnant with a seventh.
They told us about the local abalone, which is supposed to be an aphrodisiac, or “our Viagra” as one man put it.
After the stop at the castle, we left Mirbat via the same road and immediately turned left to get to Bin Ali’s Tomb. Bin Ali was a 14th century prophet and scholar.
There’s a very old cemetery in the grounds, which makes for quite an stirring sight, with its hundreds of tightly-packed headstones, two for a man and three for a woman.
The tomb itself is an interesting-looking building from the outside, but non-Muslims are allowed inside only as far as the incense room.
Continuing back, we stopped at a grove of Baobab trees 3 km up the unsurfaced road that had brought us to the coastal road. The Bradt guide got the direction of the turning wrong, which had us scouting around, looking for the trees. Eventually, we found them, though. Sarah was more impressed by them than I.
We backtracked the 3 km and turned right on the coastal road, which carried us to the turn-off for Khor Rouri. This is the site of an ancient city that was of key importance to the frankincense trade. It has been excavated and can now be visited (although the Lonely Planet guide will tell you it is still closed to the public).
It’s also the site of a harbour that has silted up and been closed off. In the distance, we could see camels drinking the fresh water from lush grasses along the bank of the old harbour.
Our final stop for the day was Wadi Dharbat. At its best during the khareef, it was nevertheless impressive and quite verdant, with a river of some kind flowing over the plain. Camels were here in abundance. One can only imagine how lush it must be during and just after the khareef. I hope we can return to see it some day.
That was the end of our final day of travels around the province of Dhofar. We put 550 km on the clock, so we got a good impression of the region. We picked up fruit shakes at Taj Al Arab on the way back to the hotel and then went down to the children’s playground in the hotel grounds so that Eloïse could run about and climb.
We got talking to a Lebanese woman who teaches at Salalah University. We told her of our desire to visit Lebanon and expressed our sadness at what Israel had done to her country. We chatted for quite a while, as Eloïse played with her son.
Eventually, it was time to go to dinner, so we said our goodbyes. She asked us to come to her house in the coming days for dinner and to be shown around Salalah, but we regretfully had to tell her we were leaving the next day. It was another shining example of the unbelieveable Arab hospitality that greets us wherever we go.
What an amazing thing travel is. In January, we were in Iceland with just a few hours of dim daylight per day and temperatures of -10°C. Now, we’re on the Arabian gulf, close to the equator with sunset at virtually the same time every day of the year. It’s scorching hot and as humid as a sumo-wrestler’s jockstrap.
Every day that you wake up, feel healthy and get to travel like this is a gift from… well, Larry and Sergey in our case.
Thanks, Larry. Thanks, Sergey. And thanks, also, Lady Luck.
It was a stifling 36°C in Salalah today, but will reportedly drop somewhat tomorrow, only to rise to 39°C again on Friday. Tomorrow, we’re getting out just in time and flying to the north again, where it will be somewhat cooler (or perhaps less hot is a better way to describe it).