The next day we had arranged with the same tour company (Sunny Day Tours) to go on a day trip to the Wahiba Sands. The Wahiba Sands are the closest dunes to Muscat (about a 2.5 hour drive) and this is where most of the tour companies go. We were not sure about doing this since we had done a similar thing in Dubai / United Arab Emirates, but we had sort of ran out of other things to do so we decided to go ahead and try it, rather than spend a day hanging out re-visiting the same souk in Muttrah.

The Wahiba Sands were a little disappointing. They were nowhere near as high and dramatic as the dunes we had seen in the UAE, and the sand wasn’t the same pretty color. The “dune bashing” was very tame compared to what we had done in the UAE as well. Not only were the vehicles underpowered, but the sands were softer. In fact, one of the vehicles in our group managed to get stuck (we were the only two in our car, but there was another 2 cars from the same company on the same trip). We had to hang out in a ‘Bedouin Camp’ nearby while they pulled the vehicle out of the sand with out vehicle. I believe this ate into most of the time we should have had driving around the dunes. As it was, we only had about half an hour of dune bashing, and half an hour running up and down the dunes. A little disappointing, given the fact that the day was supposed to be all about the dunes.

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We went for a walk along the Qurum Beach to watch the sunset. It was a lovely walk. Groups of young local boys had gathered on the beach with improvised soccer pitches to play some games. There were palapas lining the beach – and although it was cold and windy, I can imagine that in warmer weather it would have been a very relaxing beach to go for a swim and hang out on. There seemed to be a lot of other hotels (Crowne Plaza) and restaurants overlooking the beach, though there was no activity at this time of year (January).

Although we had originally planned to stay again at Marina Hotel (despite it being a dive, it was still a great location, and better the devil you know…) but the dive was full. I guess that disco gets pretty popular. We ended up staying at the slightly more expensive but much nicer Qurum Beach House in Qurum. Qurum is an area in Muscat that seems to be trying to attract the beach crowd – unlike elsewhere, they had a nice long sandy beach. There’s a lot of chain hotels along the beach, but they were pretty expensive.The hotel was about 8 stories high, with an indoor atrium. Our room was huge, with a sitting room and a bedroom. It was clean and quiet. The shower wasn’t self supporting – just a hose with a jet attached in a tub, but we’re used to that by now! The included breakfast was very good.

The hotel is about a 5 minute walk from the beach itself.

Curiously enough, there are no hotels in Nizwa itself. We ended up staying at Majan Guest House, a couple of miles outside the downtown area. It was very clean, the room was large. The owner held our bags for us during the day, and was very surprised we didn’t have a car. There were no restaurants nearby, but it was easy to get in to town by bus.

Getting back from Nizwa to Muscat was easier than we thought. We had tried to arrange a ticket in advance on the government run buses, but apparently it’s not possible to buy tickets in advance for a trip like this (i.e. where you start at a non-originating point). We ended up lucking out and getting a mini-bus that went directly to Muscat. In addition, he stopped to let us pick up our bags which we had left at the hotel for the day. The mini-buses charge per person (I forget how much, but it was basically free), and although it started out full, most people got dropped off on the outskirts of Nizwa and for most of the trip we had the bus to ourselves! The driver loooked pretty sad that we were his only passengers, as this was obviously not a profitable run for him, but we brightened up his day with a sizable tip in the end.

The mini-bus dropped us off at a Rusayl roundabout outside Muscat. This is a main transportation hub, where a lot of mini-buses end their runs. From there we got a taxi (for a surprisingly reasonable price) to our hotel.

From Nizwa, we took a day trip to Jabrin Fort. This fort is not really part of a town, and in the middle of nowhere. It looked like it might have been possible to get there by bus, but it would have involved a connection somewhere, and then finally a cab from the nearest town. We just decided to take a cab from Nizwa. We haggled and haggled and finally found a driver hungry enough to take us there, leave us for 1 hour, and bring us back, for about $15 US. It was worth the trip – a beautiful fort with lots to explore. One hour was more than enough time to get a good feel for the place.

We ended up spending a lot of time at a good falafel place right across from the fort, called Al-Zuhul Restaurant. It was the Omani version of Sonic drive-in, where cars would pull up in the dusty parking lot outside, a waiter would run out and take their order, and then they would eat it in their car. We chose to eat at the tables, and enjoyed the people watching.

Our next stop was Nizwa. Nizwa is a small town about 2 hours outside Muscat, with a fort and a market. The fort is right in the middle of town, and has an excellent view of the surroundings. It was probably the most impressive fort we visited in Oman. The Nizwa Souk was fairly small, and had recently been re-done to cater more to tourists. So while it had lost some of the authentic feel, it was still a nice place to stroll around and we picked up some nice silver jewelry.

There wasn’t much else to see or do in Nizwa – although we tried, as we did leave ourselves a day to wander around.

The Wadi itself is a beautiful canyon oasis. The guide did not accompany us on the hike itself – he left us and arranged a pick up time. This worked out well for us – it was impossible to get lost and it was nice to explore and take our time.

Nestled in amongst palm trees is a little river, and the path follows this through the canyon. We had to jump over a couple of streams – all the while swearing because we hadn’t brought our sports sandals. The views were fabulous, and finally the path stopped and we could only continue by swimming down a channel. Apparently there was a cave at the end. We felt a little uneasy about swimming, though – there were several Omani men gathered at the drop-in spot to the river, chatting and not doing much of anything. Stripping down to our bikini and trunks didn’t seem like a great option – and besides, we didn’t have sport sandals, and the way was pretty rough.

On the way back, we stopped for lunch alongside the ocean.

We also stopped at the Bimah Sink-Hole (like a cenote), which was probably formed when the ground over an underground river to the ocean caved in. There were several kids swimming in the depths below, with a good set of stairs leading down to it. Had we been prepared, a swim would have been very tempting. Surprisingly, there was good facilities next to the sink hole – it looked like changing rooms and showers.