While diving in Oman in November 2019 we also did some top side exploration around Muscat and a day trip to Wadi Shab. It took a while to write this up with the pandemic dampening the mood.
Muscat is the capital city of Oman. The city is wedged between the mountains and the sea. Distances are significant, temperatures are high and one must hire a car to get around. We stayed in one of the hotels along Qurum beach which is about half way between the old city center – Mutrah – and Al Mouj Marina where our diving boat was departing from. Roads are excellent, signs are in English and Arabic and it is pretty easy to drive around.
We were in Oman around the weekend of Oman’s National Day. National Day celebrates the birthday of Sultan Qaboos who was alive when we visited in November 2019. The streets were decorated with flags and lights and there were festivities everywhere.
Mutrah is the district where old city center is located including the market – Mutrah Souq, the harbor with Royal yacht and where cruise ships dock, the beautiful promenade – Mutrah Cornische, restaurants, the fish market, the fort and other historical sites. One of the afternoons after diving we headed down to Mutrah to walk about, have a look at the souk and eat at one of the restaurants overlooking the harbor.
Souq has quite a few shops with souvenirs that caters to tourists, but a big part of it really is a regular market where Omanis shop, even though of course they have huge modern malls where one can buy whatever one wants.
On another day in the afternoon after diving we walked along Qurum beach from our hotel. It was a weekend and lots of locals were playing football all along the beach. There are quite a few restaurants along the beach and nearby streets with fantastic food.
On the last day when we could not dive ahead of the flight, we went out of Muscat to visit Wadi Shab. Wadi refers to a valley and in this case it’s a stunning gorge with trees along a river hidden in the rugged desert mountains.
If you enter “Wadi Shab, Oman” in google maps it seems to send you to the source of the river up in the hills instead of the entrance to the Wadi near the sea where you want to go. To get to the correct place one must search for the directions for “Wadi Shab parking” or “Wadi Shab, Tiwi” and follow coastal road. In the spirit of adventure we have tried following the road up the hill. It’s a gravel road with steep incline and not to be attempted unless you are in a solid 4×4 and ready to drive along steep cliffs. We have gotten some stunning views of the mountains and isolated dwellings but before long had to turn around due to road conditions.
We returned back to the coastal road and pretty soon got to the sign for Wadi Shab parking.
To start the walk into Wadi one first needs to cross the narrow river on the little boat.
And then the hike starts along the river bed in the gorge.
At the end of the walk after about an hour, the river widens into pools and then it is swimming through the pools with short walks to get from one pool to the next. When we were there water was not too deep and we could walk through all the pools if need be except the last one which was deeper. The surfaces between pools can be slippery so a pair of water shoes could be nice. We did the entire walk in flip flops, though in retrospect hiking shoes would have been better especially when scrambling on the rocks in some sections of the gorge.
After swimming through the last pool there is a very narrow entrance to a cave and getting into is definitely worth it. The entrance is very narrow and deep so you need to swim through it. Once in the cave there is plenty of light as there is an opening in it and a beautiful waterfall. We don’t have any pictures of that though because we did not bring our waterproof camera and could not get our dry bag through the cave opening.
By the time we reached Muscat on the way back the sun set and we got a beautiful night view of Muscat as we descended from the mountains into the city. It was a great trip with good diving and hopefully we will be able to come back and explore more of Oman one day.
