The advent of this day found me and my friend Max camping on Mughsail Beach, some 40 km west from Salalah. We got up early in the morning, had a dip in the Arabian Sea, yesterday’s pasta for breakfast, packed everything, and headed for the road. Mohamed, a local man we’d met on the previous evening, as promised, was waiting there for us to drive on a trip together. Our destination would be Al Fazayah Beach, situated some few more km to the west.
We drove a relatively short distance on the main road which we left at 16.8522/53.7174 to follow a smaller dirt road down the steep slope. The road, though somewhat sketchy, was fine for Mohamed’s 2WD sedan car. The views down to the vast ocean, the wide sandy beaches, and the dramatic rock formations were absolutely splendid. A lot of peculiar flora grew in the area and herds of camels grazed happily around.
At some point somewhere halfway down the slope, we made a break to pay a brief visit to some of Mohamed’s friends. They were a herder family who apparently owned all the camels we’d previously seen in the vicinity. We found them settled inside a shallow cavity on the rock, nonchalantly squatting on a carpet around a gently fuming tea kettle. We were offered a cup of tea and a piece of carpet to sit down on as well. Then, Mohamed acting as an interpreter, they got to talk a bit about their everyday life, which was pretty uneventful overall, though, I may assume, very peaceful. A pretty interesting thing they got to let us know of was that they like and respect foreigners due to them, unlike the local drivers, tending to properly slow down before the camels.
We reached the bottom and got to behold in awe the magnificent sceneries as we drove further west, from one beach to the next, following the dirt roads. The various beaches were utterly desolate for the most part, so that they would have made for ideal camping spots.
We ended up at some sort of wall-less shelter in front of a narrow beach where a small fleet of fishing boats was at rest. The fishermen were assembled, some dozing off, others lazing about. They cordially invited us to take a seat on the carpets that covered the floor. We were offered several cups of tea and glasses of camel milk which we drank while engaging in interesting conversations with the few of them that spoke English. Then a big platter was brought which contained an enormous fish they had just boiled in seawater. All of us, a group of some ten people, sat in a circle around it and devoured the whole thing in a matter of minutes. The eyes, the cheeks, and the brains were also eaten; and the last little bone was licked off. An absolutely delicious meal. We thanked our hosts and moved on.
The three of us together with one of the fishermen who joined along, we drove to a nearby beach for some snorkeling. The water wasn’t that very translucent really, so we didn’t get to see anything of particular interest. Only Max was lucky enough to encounter a turtle underwater. We chilled there on the beach until late afternoon and drove off.
By dusk, we were back to Mughsail Beach. We stopped by shortly to chill a bit with the German campervaners. An interesting event had happened during our absence. We found the beach, which was otherwise very clean, bristled with plastic packs. Mohamed explained that this wasn’t an uncommon event. The culprits were Yemeni smugglers who habitually carry over khat by speedboats at night. Oftentimes they are spotted by the Omani marine authorities, whereupon they discard all their load in the sea, the packs being open for the contents to vanish, and they attempt to escape. The empty packs are then disposed of on the beach by the currents.
It was already dark when we left. Mohamed was planning to spend the night at a friend’s place in Salalah. I and Max would do fine if we were dropped off downtown Salalah to look for some nice spot to camp on the beach. So it happened. We thanked Mohamed for the amazing free tour, wished him good night, and agreed to meet early on the next day again; to go east this time: to Taqah town and Wadi Darbat canyon.
Accommodation and Activities in Oman
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