Well… it’s our last full day in Khasab. We don’t have much idea of what to do today, so I guess we will go see what another “hike” is. When searching for hikes we see that there is a “Khasab City Walk” “hike”. It’s just a loop around the town. Might as well try it out. 

As always, we start our morning with the great view. 

And then we head back to Khasab Castle. That’s where we saw the sign for MB1, which we believe is the city walk. And off we go. 

Just walking through random residential areas of Khasab, following our map and the street signs for MB1 (which seems more like a biking trail than a walking trail) until we reach Khumzar Castle. 

Inside was a little strange. We walked by a ticket counter that was clearly closed, but there were two men inside talking. One saw us, but didn’t do anything, so we just continued into the castle to look around. 

Honestly, there’s not too much. Many doors were locked. We’re wondering if this isn’t a very common tourist stop since it’s a bit more “out of the way” than the Khasab Castle and maybe things are only open for tours or something like that. If you know, let us know! 

We didn’t last very long inside since we covered everything in no time, so we continued on. And this is when we really think that this is more of a biking trail than a “hiking”/walking trail…

But whatever, that hasn’t stopped us before. And all the cars would slow down to pass us, and many would wave. So it wasn’t risky at all. In this more residential area we saw some nice buildings, houses, mosques, and art. 

And then we got to a section that’s just plantations. We assume dates, but could be for other uses of palm trees (we have learned that there are many) and there were also large gardens in this section. 

Finally, got to the furthest point on this loop through Khasab, the apex of which is the Sultan Qaboos Mosque. Honestly, we hadn’t heard about this being here until we stumbled upon it just now. Unfortunately, the visiting times are 8 to 11 am only, so we are too late at 1230, and not dressed the part anyway. Well, we leave tomorrow, so that cancels that. We will just have to be happy looking from outside and having visited the namesake mosque in the capital. 

And now we start making our way back on the main road between Khasab and the airport (many signs again not to photograph the airport). The scenery was similar except with a larger road. There were houses, mosques, and the other side of the palm plantations. 

And then we were back by our hotel. Just in time as it started to rain again. Seems like a pattern is presenting itself. 

So we just hid out in our hotel as the rain came down. We don’t want to get wet and sick. Once the rain had stopped for enough time though, we went out for a walk. Except it didn’t turn out to be a walk, it turned out to be a game. In the little square beside our hotel there were usually kids playing football. Well, this time we walked right by the square as we were going towards the beach and the kids invited us to play, and of course we joined in a bit. With all of the recent rain the square was more so mud than anything else. All of the kids were from Khasab while the caretaker of the square was from India. We talked a little as we passed the ball around before actually starting to play a game. They went all out. It was fun, but once a few drops of rain started coming down we said we had to go and left, they kept playing though. This is the field. You can tell where they are allowed to play because it is muddier than the rest of the square.

We then ran to the hypermarket quickly before the rain really started coming down for a bit of food and a shawarma from the nearby Yemeni restaurant again. And that’s it for our stay in Khasab! Tomorrow we leave bright and early back to Muscat! But for now, goodnight from Khasab!