Our next stop was one of the many forts built by the Hajiri tribe after they arrived in the area in 1008. It is a large fort with a mighty round tower and a unique, separate arched external staircase. Its massive walls dominate the city center, and the fort also serves as a good...
Ibra is one of the oldest cities in Oman, and it was a center of Al Harthy, Al Maskari, Al Mughairi, and Al Riyami tribes. The old part of town is a honeycomb of crumbling mud-built houses of two or three stories. We entered by a double archway and walked through some of the best parts of...
From Jebel Samhan Plateau, we drove around Baobab Grove to Mirbat. After a short visit, we drove east along Highway 49, passing rugged mountains on our left and the coastline of sandy beaches on our right. We slowly drove around fishing towns and windswept cliffs fringed by the cerulean...
We made a short stop in the fishing town of Mirbat to stroll around its harbor and merchant houses in the ruined old quarter. Some locals remain, but many are derelict as modern residents opt for concrete lodgings over the traditional mud and wattle. Some of the old buildings have kept...
We were surprised, same as botanists, to find a small stand of baobab trees gracing the thickets just above the Salalah Plain. These magnificent giants, their trunks sometimes ringed with snails, stand head and shoulders over the more typical Dhofari vegetation and are the only such trees...
We drove to the upper plateau of Jebel Samhan to stay overnight. It suddenly ends in a vertiginous drop of more than 1000 meters to the coastal plain below. Barely a ledge interrupts the vertical cliff, and it seems impossible that there should be any route down from here that...
We stopped next to the deep sinkhole (100 meters wide and 211 meters deep), known as the Well of Birds, discovered in 1997 by a team of Slovenian explorers. It gapes without warning in a corrugated landscape of rock covered in thicket. A small path leads from the car park to a viewing...
It is a popular, crowded place during the khareef (monsoon season) and a great place to enjoy the jebel in any season. Wadi Darbat is a grassy plateau in the hills marked by Oman’s largest natural permanent lake. This is the source of the estuary that flows into Khor Rori, and...
Our next stop was a small but well-preserved castle built in the 19th century (🎟️3 OMR). With a furnished interior, good signage, and an accompanying booklet explaining the history of this sardine-producing town, this is one of the better fort museums in Oman. The fort is located in the...
We gave a last chance to the waterfall in the Dhofar region. Of course, it was logically dry. But at least we drove through lovely scenery. Just before reaching a spring, a small car park appears on the right-hand side of the road, and a paved path disappears mysteriously into the wooded...