On our first long vacation since we moved to Kuwait, we decided to visit the Sultanate of Oman. We rented a car and spent 2 weeks driving around the country. Despite being surrounded by countries in turmoil, Oman has had many years of stability and peace, though they did experience some unrest during the Arab Spring in 2011. They are ruled by an absolute monarch who is admired for bringing Oman into the modern world. Until the 1970's when he took the throne, Oman had only 1 public school and hardly any paved roads. Although it has more traditional feeling than the other Arab countries we have visited, the cities are now definitely modern. We loved the mix of old world Arab living and modern feeling cities. Oman has oil revenue, but because it is small compared to that of their neighbors, many Omani people still live traditional lifestyles like goat herding in the desert or sustenance fishing. Omanis work in tourist services and hospitality and are happy to have foreign visitors. This is a welcome change for us and made our travels in Oman feel much more authentic. Omanis were very friendly and we had many people approach us, curious about our camping set up. We had several "conversations" where the Omani spoke no English and since we clearly do not speak Arabic, the conversations involved a lot of smiling and gesturing. Maybe one of our best adventures was when we got our car stuck on the beach one day and within 3 minutes had a rescue, complete with an invitation to breakfast at our rescuer's home.
Oman has many miles of beautiful coastline with clear and clean water. This is a khor (rocky headland) near Muscat.
We spent many hours walking the beaches. The tide pools were a highlight.
We were treated to gorgeous sunsets every day. This is on Masirah Island, a large island about 5 hours south of Muscat, the capital.
Camels are an important part of life in the desert.
Trigger fish caught on Masirah Island
Our home for most of the 2 weeks
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