Suggested itinerary by car:
- Day 1: Muscat
- Day 2: Wadi Shab and Wadi Tiwi
- Day 3: Sur and Ras Al Haad for an amazing experience with sea turtles.
- Day 4: Nizwa ( old city and market experience) I didn’t make it there because I fell ill.
If you have a longer stay in Oman then definitely add some more days relaxing in Ras Al Haad or the Capital city of Muscat.
Although people in Oman don’t speak English as fluently as locals in Dubai, do not be deterred away from visiting this gem of a country. The Omani people are so friendly and kind. They definitely don’t get as many western travelers visiting their country as Dubai. Which is excellent because you are treated like a celebrity once spotted 🙂
Muscat is about a 5 hour drive from Dubai, a little more with the border and visa process. You can tell when you have made it past the border (besides having to clear all 5 checkpoints) once you are engulfed by the prominent Oman mountains. I just wish we cleaned the dashboard before we left.
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the main Mosque in the Sultanate of Oman. But it was closed so we got some outside tourist pictures.
Then off to the shore… which I have to say I’m glad all of the touristy things were closed, because the beach was the perfect fit for the day. Desolate and Beautiful.
Spend sometime enjoying the beach front in Muscat. They have a beautiful Corniche as well as an authentic market, Mattrah Souk, right across from the beach. Spend a few hours walking around this area.
Our Little Hut 🙂 So romantic!
inside our dream abode
This is a really incredible picture if you look closely… the triangle shape is the sea turtles tail, and those are eggs underneath her… she just laid them.
My Scarf was volunteered to cover the Mama turtles eyes so that she didn’t become scared while we approached her…
I was really happy at this point, stated just in case you can’t tell by the crazy look on my face;) Our whole trip was based around going to see these sea turtles as far as I was concerned… But for a minute I stopped and felt really sad. These poor sea turtles are just trying to survive and make it… here we are putting them in a bowl for entertainment purposes.. I grabbed an old Bedouin guy working at the reserve and pointed to the turtles and pointed to the ocean..(he didn’t speak English.. no one in Oman really did). He nodded yes.. He pointed at the bucket and waved me to come with him to the ocean… wow staying after hours at the turtle reserve ended up being one of the most amazing experiences of my life.. I got to carry all of the baby turtles to the ocean and release them back into their habitat.
You have to wait for a boat to cross the river to get to the Trekking part.. or you could have just walked across but at this point I wasn’t in the mood to get wet .. I wasn’t in the mood for much.
those are the people who decided to just cross themselves instead of paying for the boat ride.
This little guy made my day:) Adorable donkey. Poor guy was tied up, I wanted to free him so badly but I wasn’t in the mood to get into a fight with whoever his owner was…… He looked so unhappy it made me really sad, so I spent sometime showing him some love
Boys jumping off the side of the cliffs into the Wadi.
As you can see Wadi Shab is just incredibly beautiful .. no words to describe it and the pictures don’t do it justice.. Its about an hour Trek through the Wadi to get to an underwater waterfall.. Unfortunately we did not make it to the underwater waterfall and even if we did we didn’t have a waterproof camera.. Next time I plan to come prepared.
The trek is definitely not an easy one its a lot of climbing, rocks, and there are plenty of slippery areas where people could really get hurt. I was surprised to see young boys just flying around this place like it was a playground.. We did see one boy get hurt pretty badly and get carried off. About that time we decided to call it a day, no point in Trekking with the fever and pushing myself to the limits…
What was really cool was that people set up little picnics throughout the trail… some young boys were jumping off the cliffs into the stream.. others playing songs on their drums, dancing, singing.. really just a cool place.. I made a promise to the Wadi to return and really enjoy the experience in better health…
At this point we were supposed to have one more day in Nizwa, the old capitol of Oman, for the camel and goat market on friday. Also visit a few other places, as well as more Wadi’s and old towns.. but I just got to the point where I was way too sick.. So I ruined the end of this amazing trip I spent so long planning 🙁 The good thing is that Oman is right next door so we will be planning a weekend to go back again very soon..
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