Water-filled Wednesday

Hello from Muscat! It's 9pm on Wednesday, April 8 as I write this post.

There's snow in Ottawa (or so I hear) but we had a glorious day of seeing dolphins, snorkeling and soaking up some serious sunshine (32C)!! We left around 9:30 this morning and after being on the water for no more than 10 minutes, we came across a pod of what seemed like a couple hundred common dolphins!! 200! It was amazing - they were playful, curious, having fun frolicking in the water. We must have followed along with the pod watching their antics and soaking in the spray of the water for an hour. There were even some babies hanging very closely to their mothers. They were so elegant and graceful - gliding, jumping, diving - just glistening in the water. It was a beautiful thing to see.

Then the guide drove us to a little inlet, surrounded by rocky hills. The water was jade colored - I think the white sands on the bottom of the ocean are what makes the color so vivid and intense. It was very inviting! For about an hour, we swam, looked at fish, sea cucumbers and coral. It was heavenly. The water is quite salty and it made it easy to float around. The fish were good - not outstanding - but there were enough splashes of blues and yellow to keep us entertained. I got stung by a jellyfish, had all these welts in a line around my shoulder, and it must have kept tingling for a couple of hours later. It was a really interesting feeling! The highlight of our snorkel was watching a turtle swimming underwater! We followed it as it meandered along for a little while until it was time to go.

After all that swimming and sunshine, we were starving. We had gotten a recommendation from the tour operator to hit a restaurant called Kargeen. We walked into this garden oasis - wooden chairs and tables set up under a huge shade tree, fitted with rich burgundy cushions. We had the most delicious food - biryani for Hana, buffet of salads and fish and dessert for Colleen and Jen, and hummus and moutabel (eggplant) with freshly made pita bread for me.

We sipped Turkish coffees and Chai masala, while Colleen fought off a major sleep attack from gravol that she had taken on the boat. She headed back to the hotel and we listened to Middle Eastern music (including a Middle Eastern rendition of Happy Birthday for someone in the restaurant)! It was so relaxing and restful.

After lunch, we picked up a copy of Off-road in Oman for our driving adventure. It's a detailed book that illustrates our driving routes, shows maps of how to access wadis, the mountains, and other parts of the country, offers driving tips and tricks for how to handle the drive through the wadis and the desert. Needless to say it made us all very excited!

Tonight is going to be rather low key. We've got laundry, packing, and an early bed on our agenda! Bye for now.
~ Lala