Pete’s Adventures in Salalah part 4

We are still here in Salalah and trying to keep ourselves busy.  The ship which is going to transport our boats should be here by the 27^th of April.

So here are a few photo’s and comments of what we have been doing over the past few days.

Ian, Glenda, John and myself needed to get away from the boats so we planned a trip to the Anti Gravity Road. (AGR)  The AGR is a newly constructed road which heads up into the mountains. As you approach it there is a section that looks like you are going downhill.  Wrong! You stop take the car out of gear and you start rolling backwards.  How strange, must be something to do with the gravity!!!  We carried on up the road into the interior and it was definitely up hill.

The road had some great viewing spots.  We carried on to a sink hole where we observed an eagle soaring below us.  It was a magnificent sight but unfortunately hard to capture on camera. There wasn’t any water in the sink so someone must have pulled the plug out!!!!.

On Wednesday we a group of us headed back to the BBQ beach where we enjoyed an afternoon of snorkelling, swimming, and eating. Here are Steve and Maria and Harley and April enjoying themselves.

There was some drinking involved as well, but as you can see it was non alcoholic,  to conform with the local custom of NO BOOZE.  Here is Allden passing around the orange juice.

I know I have said this before BUT this beach is spectacular and we were the only ones there.  How lucky are we to be stuck in Oman.  BUT we do need to get away from this place.  Not long now we hope.

An unussual photo for Oman.  Clouds in the sky.

On Saturday Dave from Angel organized a day out visiting some of the attractions to the east of Salalah.  The first place we visited was Sumhuram an archaeological site dating back to 3^rd century BC .  This site which is in the process of being restored was allegedly the palace of the Queen of Sheba.  It was a major trading port whose main export was Frankincense.

The natural harbour now has a sand bar across it.  This probably caused the demise of this community.

Slow progress being made by the handful of workers, but the results were fantastic giving you a real insight into living conditions all those years ago.

The BWR exploration team.  It was now lunch time so off to the beach we went.

No BBQing this time.  We had called into LULU’s the local hypermarket on the way and picked up lots of goodies to eat.  Afterwards a swim and snorkel was called for.

This was one of the most interesting snorkelling trips I have been on whilst here in Oman.  I spotted this huge Sting Ray trying to hide in the sand.  It must have been a couple of feet across.  I also spotted this large well camouflaged Porcupine fish.

I got surrounded by a very large shoal of snapper fish?  They followed me for quite a while, completely surrounding me at times. Valery from Angel had the same experience.  I managed to get it on video of it and it looks great.  I then came across this brightly coloured Butterfly fish.  I had never seen one with those colours before.  Isn’t nature amazing??

We were visited by a heard of camels which rounded off our fantastic afternoon on the beach.  True ships of the desert.

A bit of luxury was then called for.  We headed to the Marriott hotel which is situated in the middle of nowhere and seemed to only have a couple of guests.  We went for a swim in the fantastic pool and then sat and drank non alcoholic drinks for a while.  In the foyer of the hotel there is a massive model of what the hotel and surrounds should look like in five years.  I don’t think it will happen.  This hotel will be stuck in the middle of the desert all alone for the rest of its days.

On the way back we headed to the Suk where Mark sat and had a shave and I modelled a head dress for Chrissy who was looking to buy it for Mark.  Yes I do look silly I hope Mark looks better in it.

More to come later.