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...
We took the challenging Sarfait road in the morning, which links Salalah with the Yemeni border. It is one of Oman’s many impressive engineering projects. Zigzagging nearly 1000m from the Salalah Plain, it reaches the top of the cliff via 14 steep bends. A few kilometers beyond the...
We spent one night in Oman’s most spectacular bay with the azure sea, which ends in a set of sheer cliffs that reach towards the Yemeni border. We wandered towards Al Marneef Cave, where the rock pavement leads down to Mughsail Blowholes. There, seawater jets dramatically erupt from vents...