Salam Alaikum Oman

Oman. A new country for me. Not something I really had on my travel list, but like I said before, it was a wish of my dad to experience a completely new culture and he had set his eyes on Oman as the country of his choosing. And we were dragging our mom along with us.

Anyway, Oman. We arrived very early in the morning (think 5am), flew through immigration and picked up our rental car. We got an upgrade, which meant we had an absolute ship to drive with - a 4x4 Nissa X-Terra.

Once on the road, we quickly left the capital city of Muscat behind us and headed south towards our first stop, Wadi Qurai. Wadis are essentially dry river beds and oftentimes at the end of it, there are some cool pools to dip in, go for a little swim and freshen up.

With this one, we were following along a little man-made water channel that would lead us to the small pools. That said, there was one section that was very exposed and my mom turned back due to vertigo but encouraged my dad and me to continue. So, we followed the waterway for about 20-30 minutes before arriving at the pools and I quickly jumped in as it was already approaching 40 degrees at around 8-9am in the morning.

Once we got back to the car, we expected my mom to wait for us there, but were mistaken.
Instead, we found her being invited by an Omani family for breakfast, sitting outside on a blanket, having a chat about the world and playing with their little child. Basically, I didn't have to feel bad, as it seems she had at least as good of a time as my dad and I had.

The next stop on our roadtrip was a beautiful viewpoint over the town of Birkat Al Mouz. It was a birds-eye view over a sea of palm trees with some old ruins built into the dry mountains in the background. The contrast was quite stark, which made this viewpoint so interesting.

As we got a bit hungry by now, we went to a little cafe that has a nice location right at the top of a water channel that fed the sea of palm trees that we saw from the viewpoint. We also explored the water channel and the ruins for a while, before tiredness overcame us and we decided to head to our hotel.

After taking a longer nap, all three of us decided to head to the hotel pool for some relaxing, cooling off and just taking in that we are in Oman. That said, we were not done with the day yet.

One of my mom's wishes/hopes to see in an oriental country was to visit an typical market full of colours, scents and vibes. And Nizwa is said to have one of the most beautiful ones in Oman.

So, we hopped into the car and drove to a city called Nizwa. We first had some goat skewers to taste traditional Omani street food before a short stroll to the market.

The atmosphere in the evening was absolutely gorgeous - colourful, warm, busy but in a good way. The traders offered typical oriental products from delicious fruits, over colourful spices, to handmade ceramics. All of that dipped into a warm light with an illuminated minaret setting itself apart from the dark night sky.

It really was a perfect end to our first day in Oman. From our first Wadi, to a family encounter, a sea of palm trees, old ruins, and a night market to dream of. Yeah, Oman on the first day delivered on my expectations. Let's see what the next 9 days bring.Read more