Retired Nomads: April 23, 2013 Muscat, Oman 8:00a to 5:00p

Oman's capital was once a major trading center controlled and influenced by the Portuguese. Today, visitors flock to Oman thanks to its azure air, towering desert mountains, and crystalline waters. Muscat itself is an Arabian fable sprung to life. Old 16th century forts guard the bay and the palace, while the vibrant souqs offer daggers, superb silver jewelry, and traditional crafts and costumes.

Muscat's Al Alam palace is the official residence of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. We dock in Mina Qaboos today.

Today we have a full day tour set up with Mark’s Tours. Valentina was helpful and responded quickly to emails. www.marktoursoman.com/

We are joined today by Marianne, Gail & Hal and Jeff & Julie. Yesterday at the meet and greet 2 other people canceled with no time to replace their openings. So, I contacted Valentina and told her we had 2 less people and got new pricing and she said she set up a smaller van instead of a bus. She reminded us we needed ankles and wrists covered for the mosque and a scarf to cover our heads.

We took the ship shuttle to the main gate of the port and she wasn’t there. Greg called and she said she was on her way. She shows up with a vehicle that seats exactly 7. Another car followed her and parked and a girl gets out and also gets in the vehicle. Valentina put a blanket down in the row that seats 3 and says that will help so we don’t feel the spaces between the seats and 4 of us squished in there. Luckily none of us are huge. We wondered who this other girl was, we thought it was a guide and Valentina was the driver or perhaps it was her daughter. However, it turned out she was a paying tourist and was put on with our “private” tour.

We drove through the city of Muscat passing the Ministries district and Royal Opera House.

Then we were off to our “short” stop at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. It was a majestic white sandstone building and can hold up to 20,000 worshipers. It really was beautiful with this huge chandelier and ornate carpets and ceilings. We saw the understated women’s place of worship first and then the men’s. However, our short visit turned into a long visit.

sail in

waiting for the tour guide

Our next hitch was when we confirmed our return time of 4:00 and on board no later than 4:30. She said she thought we had until 6:30 and couldn’t do everything in the plan. Every email I had from her confirmed we could do the tour and be back at 4:30. So, now we have to choose what’s the most important things to us. I really wanted the lunch with the Bedouin family and the dune bashing at the sands, but couldn’t do both. The girl we don’t know says “well, the sands are the most important”. OK, who is this girl and why does she have a say in what we do? Plus, Valentina now tells us it’s a 2.5 hour drive each way instead of a 2 hour drive each way. There goes more time.

So we drive out of Muscat to Sharqiya region the place of the famous Wahiba Sands. We drove through the beautiful mountains which reminded me a lot of Arizona. Along the way we saw lots of goats, camels and donkeys. Also a lot of new construction of some really nice homes out in the middle of nowhere.

We stopped at a mini mart for a bathroom break and it also was where we picked up the 4WD vehicles for the dune bashing. Each car held 3 people and the driver. Interesting they were playing American rap type music in our vehicle. I heard the other drivers had different tastes in music played in their vehicles. It had rained hard the night before so the sands were not dry and didn’t make for good dune bashing. With soft dry sand there is way more slipping and sliding. Our driver however did drive up and down a few steep areas. Our guide rode with us and she was screaming and I was laughing because it was fun!

The driver of the 4WD took us to a different Bedoiun family and we got out to take photos and were invited in for dates and coffee. There were camels and a ton of goats there. They had dried palm fronds that made their camp and they had a tent made of them that was their bedroom. We were taken to the guest quarters which was a medium sized “room” with carpets on the walls and like a tarp to sit on. The floor of course was sand. We sat down and a little old lady who requested not to have her picture taken came in with coffee and these small cups and a huge bowl of dates that we passed around. Man, they were good. We all ate a bunch of them and had seconds of the coffee. We asked if she had any handicrafts since the family we were supposed to visit was to have them for sale. Our guide asked and the lady came back with a bag with some things she had made. Colored cloth rings and bracelets, purses and a couple silver containers that we were told hold eye makeup or the like. The Bedouin woman only spoke Arabic, but one of the drivers helped translate. To convert the money our guide who is Russian was calculating in Russian. Greg could understand her and they spoke briefly in Russian. I got one of the silver vials.

We then finished our dune bashing and drove back to the mini mart. We had a few photo ops and then we needed to hit the road and try to make it back to port on time.

We were hungry since we had not had lunch so Valentina took us to another mini mart to grab some munchies for the car ride back. We grabbed a couple of sodas, cheese pastry type sandwiches and chocolate wafer bars.

We wanted to be dropped at the souq for about 15 minutes of shopping, but one in our group loudly protested and we were taken back into the port 25 minutes before all aboard.

So, we missed the lunch with the Beduion family and driving the Corniche in Old Muscat for a photo stop at the Sultan’s Palace flanked by the Portuguese forts of Jalali and Mirani and stop at Jahili Fort and Sultan Qaboos Palace for a photo and shopping at the souq.

I felt bad since it was the first tour that Hal & Gail took with us and it was less than what was promised. Not a good first impression. Like Doha, I don’t think they are that prepared for tourism. However, I’m not sure we actually ended up with a tour by Mark’s Tours. They have nice vehicles that are well marked. Valentina said she now worked at the Oryx farm where we dune bashed. I got the feeling she stole our business and getting vehicles was a problem. She had borrowed the one we were using from a friend. She didn’t know how to drive it and it had child proof locks that won’t open unless the car is shut off and so we wasted a lot of time figuring out why the doors wouldn’t open. She also drove with both feet. Gas, brakes, gas, brakes and kind of herky jerky.

At one point in the ride to the sands Jeff made a joke and everyone is the back seat was laughing. Valentina thought somehow that everyone was laughing at her and got upset. She wanted to know what was so funny. It was kind of hard to explain the joke. Marianne had said Sherry had told her that a couple of the ladies wet their panties during their dune bashing and so she might want to bring a spare pair along. She had told the story about an hour ago. Jeff and Julie were getting a bit car sick with the sway of the back of the vehicle and just her sporatic driving. Jeff joked “I might need Marianne’s panties soon” We all laughed. They were also making fun of me because I take a lot of photos out the window and of course most don’t turn out that well from a fast moving car. I joke that trees or trucks always jump into my picture. So we were laughing at some of my great pictures of trees instead of the building or whatever I was trying to get a picture of.