Oh Sweet Salalah - Part Two

Saturday, we woke up and drove out to Khori Rori (Samaharan), a former trading port that dates back to the 3rd c BCE and was inhabited until the 8th c CE (at least). The site contains a record of Roman, pre-Islamic, and Islamic eras. It's a beautiful site, a fortification on an inlet with two headlands that shield it from the crashing Indian Ocean.

A handy map

 The view from the fortress looks south to the sea. As we drove out to the eastern headland, we passed a field of camels grazing.

 We climbed up to the top of the headland, slipping and sliding in the deep sand and rocks, but the view from the top was incredible and worth every shifting step.

 As we walked to the other end of the headland, we looked down on the camels.

 Samaharan is on the spit of land in the middle of the inlet.

 We found a skull...not sure what it was?
After lunch, and a failed attempt to find Souq al-Haffa, we had a few hours left before our flight and drove west of Salalah to see al-Mughsayl Beach and Marneef Cave. On the way, we ran into some more traffic...

 Al-Mughsayl Beach is absolutely gorgeous, a long stretch of land that gives way to the mountains and the jagged cliffs. We walked along the cliffs and the cave to visit the blowholes. The scenery was stunning.

 As the waves crashed into the sea, you could hear a churning hollow sound as the water wound its way underneath the cliffs and came surging up through the blowholes. A group of kids was playing near the grates over the blowholes, daring each other, and ran away shrieking with laughter any time that the water came up.

Once back in Salalah, we returned our rental car and checked in for our flight. When our gate opened, we had a highly organized boarding process (see below). Essentially, they opened the doors of the airport, and we walked across the tarmac and up the steps into our plane. Very formal. Why is it that things are always more relaxed in the south, everywhere?

Salalah is incredibly beautiful - rolling mountains and cliffs that drop down into an azure sea. I am so grateful that we were able to go - the trip was an unfettered joy. I loved being outside and in gentler weather, eat and drink fresh tropical fruit, and having the freedom and mobility to visit ruins and trek around outside. It probably also helped that we were traveling in a mixed group, not just girls: our male classmates offered us entry into places that just girls would not have been able to comfortably access, and prevented any unwanted attention from men. It was the Oman I had hoped to visit: tropical - green and lush, comfortable, accessible, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Oh Sweet Salalah - Part One

This past weekend, I flew to Salalah with a few of my classmates. I am so grateful for this trip - it has been my most positive experience in Oman, and I really enjoyed myself. Salalah is a city grown from a trading port on the Indian Ocean, and served as a central point of trade between India, East Africa, and the Middle East. All the Omanis we had talked to told us at the beginning of the program, "After one month, Salalah will be so beautiful!" So we booked our tickets. Then when we shared our dates, they all said, "Now, Salalah is not beautiful...after one month, it will be beautiful!" The sense of time is clearly different here...undeterred, we went anyway.
After we arrived, we picked up our rental car and drove north to Wadi Dawkah, where there is a UNESCO-sponsored reserve. The reserve protects a grove of frankincense trees. Both frankincense and myrrh are found in abundance in Oman (you may recognize these as two of the three gifts the wise men brought baby Jesus). Frankincense is collected by hashing the trunk of the tree and allowing the resin to form (2-3 weeks). These drops are collected and burned as incense. The Arabic name for it is ألبان (luban). The trees are quite beautiful close up.

On our way back south to Salalah, we ran into some early afternoon traffic on the roads...

but we made it to Ayn al-Sahlanout. People aren't allowed to swim in the water, because snails infected with bilharzia have contaminated the water. But it is an incredibly beautiful spot, to view from afar.

The water had also carved away the rock in intricate and delicate formations.

Afterwards, we drove into the town of Salalah. Banana, palm, and coconut groves line the streets of the town and run up to the coast. It's lush and green, and fruit stalls with local fruit are quite the temptation.

We availed ourselves of fresh bananas and coconuts, although it was hard to pass up the mangoes. The fruit seller was very sweet, and when I asked him what a particular fruit was, he broke it open so we could try it. It's called chikku, and looked like the below. It was really sweet, like mangosteen, and quite delicious.

At lunch, we found (after several wrong turns and asking a local), the restaurant our professor recommended, Maestro Cafe. It was really delicious - but we didn't order the Mexican feather thieves. We'll have to go back and try it sometime.

After a much-needed nap, we had dinner at a Persian restaurant and then went and sat by the beach. It was gorgeous, 75 degrees, and so incredibly peaceful.