Mountains and Jabreen Fort

Our last full weekend before returning to Estonia was spent by driving around in the mountains. We had a visitor, so we thought to take him to somewhere where we had already been and not experiment with new routes! First day we drove around in Jabal Akhdar. It was pleasantly cooler there in the height of around 2km, it was around 27C while "on the ground" it was around 40C. We also saw a long (1,5m?) snake in the mountains that made us quickly to pack our picnic stuff and drive on. Again, we drove to Ar Ruus village, place that we like to call for "end of the world". It was for the 3rd time in this village, so some locals already recognized us, invited us for dates and cafee. We always have a nice chat with them. When I asked one local guy about what they could grow in that village, he invited us to his garden and we returned with a bag full of delicious apricots! Another example how friendly and kind Omani people are! In the evening visited Nizwa souq and we stayed overnight in a nice hotel apartment near Bahla (for the second time). 

Next day we drove around in Jebel Shams. Afterwards we visited Jabreen Fort, where we still had not been before. The castle is quite large and was really interesting to visit.

A room called library in the castle:

Views:

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These were our adventures for last 4,5 months. Once again, we have discovered many new places, met many friendly people and made life-time memories. In some days it is time to travel back to Estonia but we will not say good-bye to Oman for good. In autumn we will be back for another winter!

Wadi Zeht and Sifah beaches

We decided to take it more "easy" this Friday and did not plan any long trip. We still had not discovered the eastern beaches of Sifa, so this was our destination! We drove from Bausher to Al Amirat and followed the Muscat-Sur highway until turn to Yiti. That way one drives to coast direction through a lovely wadi (unfortunately I cannot recall the name any more).

View in the wadi:

There are some very beautiful lagoons on the coast, between Yiti and Sifa.

Before Sifa, we took a drive in Wadi Zeht that we renamed Wadi Donkey because there were lots of donkeys. We did not drive the wadi until the end but when we started to drive back we could count 29 donkeys.
A photo of an angry donkey, it was making a very scary noise when we took a photo of it:

Eastern beaches of Sifa:

Watch out! Sometimes there can be holes middle of the road:

Crabs' highway. The marks on the sand are made by crabs.

Salmah Plateau

Driving off-road got a totally new dimension for us last weekend. We could see how bad it could get, there were moments when it was better not to breathe and finally, we made a right decision to turn back.

We started Salmah plateau route from Fins, the road went up and up and up and it did not look so bad at first because the road even had some edges. It was steep climbing but nothing awful. The views got better and better, the higher we got. The plateau is around on 1,5km height and the view over the surroundings is wonderful: mountains in „front“ and sea in „back“, something totally different than in the mountains that are situated inland. Also, it was pleasantly „cool“ on the plateau, being only around 32C while in Muscat it was 45C (the hottest we have experienced here so far)! On the plateau there is also Mailis Al Jins cave entrance. We got to read that it is the second largest cave in the world but it is impossible to enter without a special equipment. Besides the cave and camels and some villages on the plateau there was also an airstrip. And then, after the nice wide airstrip landscape we continued the road but it became worse and worse. The rain had made the road complicated to drive, there were parts where there were big loose rocks and empty holes between them, so it was difficult to find a good place for car wheels. Then, some parts the road got nice again but after another difficult rocky part when we hoped it was the last one we ended up in wadi (dry river bed) and it got even more difficult, so we returned. It was a right decision, because later we heard that even the locals try to avoid part of this route. By the late afternoon we were back in Fins, where there are beautiful white-sand beaches. We had dark clouds all around us and we saw lighting in the distance but we got only some raindrops, perfect! We had some bbq and we relaxed until dark hours. When it became dark it was time for grab watching. It was oh-so-beautiful evening! When we started to drive back to Muscat our car started to give „engine failure“ notification but fortunately we arrived back safe and sound (next day, Andres took the car to the car rental to get it fixed... for next adventure).

Entrance of Mailis Al Jins cave, around 130m down there is the cave:

Back in Fins:

The boys managed to crab a grab into their bucket: