March 28, 2023
We were a little late getting off the boat so the last bus was already taking off. Fortunately, there was one taxi sitting there offering us a ride. We asked how much and he said 6 euros per hour so we signed up for 2 hours ~ can't beat that price! So we jumped in the back seat and had our own personal tour guide!
Muscat is a beautiful City (the capital and most populated city in Oman). It sits on the Gulf of Oman and is surrounded by mountains and desert. It is one of the Middle East's oldest cities.Almost everywhere you went you were surrounded by these cliff-like mountains; the houses and other establishments were just built around them. It was a beautiful contrast to all the buildings which were white.
The far right middle picture is the Al Alam Palace where anyone of importance who was visiting stayed (presidents, dignitaries, etc). It seemed like the only contrast to the white buildings were the many blue-domed mosques throughout the city.We went to the Royal Opera House. It was big and pretty and it would have been fun to get all dressed up and see some famous play while sitting in the balcony feeling important! The Muscat Gulf was gorgeous with its many forts overlooking it. We did see many people swimming but not so many in these pictures with the rugged rocks meeting the land. Like I mentioned before, all the buildings are white ~ ALL of them. After driving around for a couple hours it felt like nothing was that different because you just passed another white building. Don't get me wrong because it was very clean, bright and was brand new looking but after awhile it seemed almost stark in contrast to other countries. As we were entering the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque parking lot there were Palm trees covered with dates. Our Taxi driver had some dates in the backseat and told us to have some, we declined because we knew he was fasting. He insisted and they were the sweetest, most delicious dates I have ever tasted! There is our taxi driver in the upper left corner. He was super nice and kind! We didn't arrive at the correct time so only Muslims were allowed to go inside the Mosque during certain times so he stepped inside and took a few pictures for me! As our 2 hour tour (which ended up being 2 hours and 45 minutes because our sweet taxi driver didn't want us to miss seeing everything) I snapped a picture of our humongous cruise ship (far right) and the Kings yacht (far left). His yacht was very large; about a third of the regular size cruise ship (in the middle) ~ crazy! We also learned that our driver had said "60 Euros" not "6 Euros" < it was one of those "too good to be true" situations 😂, but we still got an excellent deal and got to see much more than we would have seen on one of the excursion and the price was much less, as well! Overall an excellent day!
