From Salalah, we head south to Fazaya Beach. As we are supposed to meet colleagues there, we will explore Salalah a little later.
On the main road that leads south to the Yemeni border, we experience the steep ascents and descents of Oman for the first time. I keep the heat indicator of our radiator water under close control.
First we drive along the beautiful “Mughsail” beach before the road turns into the coastal mountains. A good road has been carved into the rock face here. Impressive.

Fazaya Beach

A relatively good gravel road leads steeply down to Fazaya beach. The gradients here may be 15 to 20 percent. In any case, we drive down at a crawl so that we don’t have to stand on the brakes all the time and overheat them.

On the beach

Thanks to our colleagues Tommy and Conny, we find a promising spot slightly above the beach. We are so impressed by this beach that we stay for 6 full days and simply enjoy it.
We spend the afternoons by the water. Strolling through the sand and wading through the warm water. The Indian Ocean is too moving for us to enjoy swimming.
Every day between 3 and 4 pm, small groups of tourists arrive on the beach and have fun for an hour before leaving again. During the night it is always wonderfully quiet, except of course for the incessant thundering of the waves.

Martin and Christina

Martin and Christina from Switzerland are standing on a small stretch of beach in their Mercedes expedition vehicle, which goes by the name of “Marmotte”. They are also traveling extensively on the Arabian Peninsula and of course it’s nice to spend the evening chatting about their travel experiences and adventures. It’s also good for us to be able to speak Swiss dialect in a relaxed manner again now and again.

Moods

In addition to the – for us – atmospheric sound of the sea, we enjoy and admire the morning and evening light moods. They put us in a happy, peaceful, astonished, grateful and inexpressible mood.
It is very difficult to reproduce what our eyes see and how they see it, so the following pictures should be seen more as an emotional interpretation of what we experienced.

Salalah

Back in Salalah, we are back at Coconut Beach. We like it here, inwardly we have to grin at the car parade along the beach every evening, especially at sunset. As much as we like being in nature and as much as we appreciate and love the tranquillity and remoteness, we also love the urban life in between, which in our opinion is also part of a trip.

Tropical plantings

Due to the trade winds, the climate in Salalah and the surrounding area is tropical and relatively green. In addition to dairy farming, tropical plants also thrive here. Juicy vegetables and fruits. Bananas, avocado, papaya, mango, coconuts, and so on and so forth. Tonight we walk through a very small area of these extensive plantations, which are open and accessible.

“Al Baleed” Archaeology Park

Al-Baleed Park is an archaeological park in Salalah. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000 as part of the “Land of Frankincense”.
The ruins in the park belong to the medieval city of “Zafar”, after which the Dhofar governorate was named. Zafar served as an important port for the incense trade after the decline of the nearby port of Khor Rori.
It was visited by many famous travelers such as Marco Polo and others. The city fell into decline in the 16th and 17th centuries for various reasons such as the closure of Lake Khawr al Balīd (which used to be a bay) and the Portuguese/Turkish/Mamluk invasion.

The park is also home to the“Museum of the Land of Frankincense“, which provides information about the frankincense trade. Particularly impressive are the beautiful ship models that were used to ship the incense around the world at the time. Some primitive navigation tools are also on display.

Sultan Qaboos Mosque

The Sultan Qaboos Mosque was completed in 2001. It is characterized by a huge prayer room. The carpet in the prayer room is 4200 m2 in size. It is dedicated to the Sultan, who unified and modernized Oman.

In general, the city is very tidy and clean and has a very good road system. Salalah is a port city and around 200,000 people live in Salalah. The harbor is located outside the city, so the city is adorned by beautiful white beaches.

Incense Souk

A very small souk is dedicated to incense. Of course, we also want to buy some frankincense to deepen our frankincense experience. Frankincense is a resin that is burned in special oil cubes to release its typical fragrance. But even without being burned, the resin smells wonderful and strong. But when we think of our resins at home, they also smell very fine.