Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

We arrived in Muscat on the 20th to guess what? More hot, humid sunny weather.  We cleared customs without any issues. They didn’t ask how long we were staying, where we were staying, had we visited the Satan country of Israel or anything. They didn’t speak a word to us. Not-one-word! So we went outside and proceeded to negotiate the price for a private taxi to our hotel, in the end 9 Omani Riel, about $32.00 CAD. Not too bad. Our hotel, Beach Hotel is about a 10 minute walk to Al Qurum Beach, a very beautiful expanse of beach on the Gulf of Oman which is part of the Arabian Sea and also to some extent the Persian Gulf.

Many years ago in my previous life and on my first trip around the world in 90/91 I landed in Muscat en route to Madras, India which is now named Chennai. We landed at about 1:00 am, January 17th, 1991. Do you remember that date? It was the exact date and time that Operation Desert Storm started, the first Gulf war where the USA began its war against Iraq who had invaded Kuwait a few months earlier. We waited for the crew who had changed in Muscat and we departed at 2:00 am. We were the last civilian airline to leave the Gulf region before all airspace had been shut down.

Now here we are in Muscat, a beautiful city nestled along side the Al Hajar Mountains which forms a belt between the coast and the desert. Muscat has a history of antiquity and mixes upscale shopping malls with clifftop landmarks such as the 16th century Portuguese forts, Al Jalali and Mirani which loom over Muscat Harbour. It is a beautiful city.