Exploring Salalah

After arriving in Salalah coming from Mombasa / Kenya, we spent a couple of days at the lovely beaches of Salalah to organise ourselves and our camper.

The night, when our camper left the harbour was a bit stressful, until it was finally standing on the earth again at 3am.

In Salalah, we stayed at the coconut beach, where it was very peaceful during the day, just at dawn, it transformed into a car promenade, with the locals driving up and down.

We visited the Al Baleed museum and the excavations of a medieval town. The museum houses an interesting exhibition on Omani boats and the history of the region, which got rich through the export of frankincense, the resin of a tree which grows well in this area.

The ruins in the park are of the medieval city of Ẓafār, which acted as an important port for frankincense trade after the decline of the nearby port in Khor Rori. It was visited by many famous travellers, such as Marco Polo. The city declined in the 16th–17th centuries due to the closure of the bay.

We then left Salalah to the west and tried to get to a cliff, where a ship wreck lies on the rocks beneath, just that we didn’t find a route which was doable with our car. We made 2 attempts from inland and checked another route along the coast, but steep, rocky sections made them impassable for us. The best would have been to walk the last kilometres, just that it was too hot at midday. We were already exhausted from scouting parts of the routes before driving.

We then reached Mughsail, which is a long beach with white sand and turquoise water, where we spotted our first dolphins in Oman. At one end lies a cliff, where some blow holes produce fountains of water if the conditions are right. During low tide and with tiny waves, nothing happened.

We were surprised, how many birds live at the coast and in the lagoons around town. In the first days we already spotted more than 30 different birds in this area.

The next day we continued along the coast in direction of Jemen to Fizayah beach, which lies below a 600m high cliff and has beautiful bays between rocks with crystal clear water and white sand. Here we spotted the first turtle in Oman!

The desert rose is a plant we had already encountered in arid areas of Africa, where it is called Impala Lily. Our friend Lorraine in Phalaborwa had many beautiful varieties in her garden.

Camels are everywhere, they are like cows in other countries, grazing wherever the find something.

The biggest mosque in Salalah, the Sultan Qaboos Mosque with a single dome and two minarets, was built in 2011 as a gift of Sultan Qaboos to his mothers hometown.

In the hills behind Salalah, we visited Ayn Garziz – a spring, a cave with a view and finally the Tomb of Ayyub, which is one of the alleged burial sites of Job (Hiob). He is the central figure of the Book of Job in the Bible. In rabbinical literature, Job is called one of the prophets of the Gentiles. In Islam, Job is also considered a prophet.

Job is presented as a good and prosperous family man who is suddenly beset with horrendous disasters that take away all he holds dear—a scenario intended to test Job’s faith in God. Struggling mightily to understand this situation, Job reflects on his despair but consistently remains devout.

When we realised, that we have a serious problem with our brakes, we ordered the break disks from Mercedes, but the brake pads were not available, so we tried the local mechanics. We received the disks quickly and Mansoor mounted them in his little workshop. The brake pads have to last a little longer we decided.

We are now ready to leave Salalah to the east and explore more of the Dhofar region.