So, from our brief excursion yesterday we decided that one day would not be enough to explore this place. Luckily we were able to change our flight from tomorrow (25th of December) until the 27th of December for a small 30 dollar fee with Oman Air, and our flight out of Oman was able to be changed free of charge because there are more than 24 hours before our flight. We were also able to easily extend our hotel. Looks like everything is working out better now that we’re actually here in Khasab. So, let’s get to exploring this place!

So, as promised last night, we went right back to the “mountain” with the Omani flag at the top. On our way there we walked the same path as last night next to the road… and then we saw this. Just a solitary goat on the side of the road. Where did it come from? There are only two possibilities… either it came along the road or from the mountains above. Probably the mountain… but that’s pretty impressive.

Either way, on we went, eventually making it to the top of the “mountain” again with the Omani flag. This time we will give you a bit of a better view so that you can really appreciate the geography of this region, because it is insane. Only a full 360 degree view would really do it justice (shameless plug for our Kuula account).

Well… what to do now? We just started wandering the area until we found this. A random hiking trail going up the side of a mountain. It’s rated pretty easy, but it also says that there are cliffs along this trail. So…. who knows. If it gets too hard or dangerous, we will just turn back. No point in risking anything.

As we started, you can appreciate the terrain that we had to go up.

But whatever, not too bad. Let’s just keep going and see how it goes. It was at this point that my partner decided that it may be a good idea to film this hike going up, so he brought out the 360 camera and that was the end of my photoshoot…

In the end it was an “easy” hike. The terrain was not too difficult, as you can see in the video, but it was uneven in parts. Overall a nice little hike that we were not expecting to do this morning. And, if we thought the view from the “mountain” with the Omani flag was nice… this one is incredible. And we are much, much higher.

And there was a sign at the top to commemorate the ascent.

AND! Another trail from here! So we had just climbed the Roos Al Jibali trail, and from the top of that continued the Sea View trail.

Well… the sign clearly indicated the way to go was here…

Well… we didn’t do it. We were hiking alone, so why risk something we’re not completely sure about? No one even knows that we are precisely at this location at this exact moment. So my partner’s mother will be happy to learn (much, much after it actually occurred) that we aren’t dumb and didn’t take any unnecessary risks.

We just sat up there for a long, long time taking in the views, doing some time lapses, and taking some video. It was really awesome. And we felt like we were the only people up there because we were, only once we were down did we see others going up. Then, it was time to start going back down. This time we can show you a bit more of the trail so that you can see it here in case the video takes forever to be uploaded on Youtube.

As you can see, everything is clearly labelled for you to go up (signs and painted stripes), so there aren’t any real questions as to where you should be going. Once you’re at the marked tree it gets a little harder to tell, but we would just walk to the next marker and look around until we saw the next one and walk there. Overall, a great hike and we fully recommend it if you’re ever in the area. And then you get to take this commemorative selfie so you can feel self accomplished.

Then it was back along the side of the road (on a sidewalk at least) back to the beach. You can see the top of the “mountain” with the Omani flag in the background.

And then it was time to enjoy ourselves. We brought our swimming gear because we figured that if we did a hike we would get hot, and what better way to cool off than a swim in the Hormuz Straight? So, we were a bit worried because of the immigration officials that had told us that it would be freezing… but… nothing. It was actually great! We swam around for quite a bit.

And, as an aside, we weren’t sure about how to go about swimming here. It was our first beach experience in the Middle East and yesterday we hadn’t seen anyone swimming, so we couldn’t just copy the way the others dressed or behaved. We had been told by so many people that they were conservative here and this and that… but as we were arriving we saw another man that was bathing by himself in regular swimwear, so we did the same and no one even looked twice at us. Our concerns were for nothing.

Well… just as we got out and setup a camera to do a nice time-lapse of the mountains… it started raining! Whaaaat. Only a few drops, but it shocked us all the same. Everything is so very dry here, we couldn’t really imagine it raining. But, we didn’t want to get wet, so we took that as our cue to get moving back towards the hotel. Weirdly enough, absolutely zero locals were bothered by the rain. They continued their barbecues and lounging on the beach as if nothing was happening. Interesting. But, we aren’t locals, and we don’t have a car to run to. AND! We don’t know what the weather is like here because all of a sudden there was thunder and lightning in a neighbouring fjord… Still the locals didn’t react, but we were already at the point of the road where there was a sidewalk again. And luckily we did! Look at what we saw when we went out later that night.

We had been told that they don’t have much drainage systems in the Middle East because it would just get clogged by sand anyway, so it would be more work to constantly unclog them in the off chance that it rains rather than just dealing with a bit of localized flooding when it does rain. And we can say that we saw that for sure. We did see some drainage systems that we will share with you in due course, but for now we need some food, which is why we’re out in this mess in the first place. Back to the hypermarket we go, and they are ready for Christmas. It would be interesting to know if there are actual locals that celebrate Christmas here or not, we have only met muslims, hindus, and buddhists so far.

Then it was a walk back towards the hotel in the dark. We find it so dark at night in the Middle East in general so far, but here especially. And the way that the mountains here are just visible in the background in the dark is a very strange sight. In this picture you can’t appreciate it because we made it so that more light was captured to really highlight the mountains, but it’s like a shadow that’s just beyond the reach of the light.

And then, as it is the 24th of December, we went to have our own Christmas meal. We went to a Yemeni restaurant, a country that we know we won’t visit on this trip because of what has been going on in the country for the past number of years, and had our first sit-down meal at a restaurant. Camel. My partner ate camel. He said that it was very tasty, but didn’t notice that much difference from a slow cooked beef. But, it was delicious. And all of this food for only 2.5 OMR, about 9 dollars. Crazy.

And, for our snack at midnight, we decided to embrace the region of the world we were in and get some Omani dates! A great way to celebrate Christmas in this remote area of Oman.

Goodnight and Merry Christmas from Khasab!