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We flew back to Muscat from Heathrow on Tuesday the 16th of November, arriving on the 17th. Since the boat is still in the boat yard we can't live aboard so we checked into the Mutrah hotel.The hotel is the oldest hotel in Mutrah. It may be a bit dated now but its fine and the rooms are clean with air-conditioning. The restaurant serves very good curries so Paul's happy. We hired a car at the airport so that we could get to and from the marina.
The boat was OK but very dirty. I spent over two hours cleaning the deck and it's still dirty. It is currently being anti fouled and will have a red bottom from now on. Perhaps we should rename it into the red.
Monday 22/11/2010
We drove from Muscat to Nizwa, a distance of 164km, through the mountains; the road is a fast dual carriageway so it took less than two hours.
Nizwa is one of Omans many fortified cities. We visited the castle and fort which was completely renovated a project taking ten years commencing in 1985 and being completed by 1995. The fort was very interesting and is very big inside. You can go to the top of the tower within the fort where there is a splendid view of Nizwa and the surrounding mountains. The tower was constructed to withstand attack. It provided a number of nasty surprises for any enemy soldiers trying to get to the top. There are holes known as murder holes through which boiling date juice could be poured onto the enemy as they climbed the narrow winding stairs, plus holes in the floor through which unsuspecting persons would fall. At the top cannons are arranged all the way round to provide cover from all sides. Well worth a visit.
Surrounding the fort is Nizwa souk. The souk sells all sorts of things from silver and copper handicrafts to goats. We were there in the middle of the day so it was closed, until about 4.30pm.
In the afternoon we went to have a look at the huge fort at Bahla. This is currently undergoing renovation and is not open to the public. We had to make do with walking round the outside. It will be quite spectacular when it is finished.
Saturday 27/11/2010
We are still in the hotel as the antifouling is not finished. So far it has had two undercoats and two coats of red antifouling. Apparently it is going to have a third coat.
It's been rather chaotic all week with road closures due to the 40th National Day celebrations. Sultan Quaboos has been sitting on the throne for 40 years, so they are celebrating. Muscat is all lit up at night and looks very pretty in red, white and green, Oman's national colours. The Queen is here too. The road from Muscat to the marina was closed today due to the queen having tea at the British ambassador's residence which is next to the marina, so we couldn't do any work on the boat. Instead we went along the coast road to the sea port of Sur. It is an old town with many traditional Arabic houses with carved doors and arched windows. It is still the Dhow building centre in Arabia and supposedly was home of the legendary Sinbad of Arabian Nights fame. We went across the bridge, (which was not shown on our map) from Sur to Al Ayjah, where there is a fort and on down the coast to Al Hadd, where there is yet another fort.
We carried on down the coast in search of sand dunes and camels but the dunes were too far away for us to travel to and get back to Muscat in one day. Besides you needed a four wheel drive vehicle to explore them.We did get to the point where the rocky desert was beginning to give way to sand and we saw several camels by the side of the road.
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