The year started with a 1 week business trip to Oman directly after the Christmas holidays. I had to work on 2 projects, one in Nizwa, the other in Muscat. The flight from Zurich took about 6hrs during the night. From Muscat airport I got a rental car together with a colleague. The drive to Nizwa took about 1 ½ hours. Driving is very easy, not as crazy as in Jordan for example and street conditions are very good. The business part went very well so I had time to visit the area around. Nizwa is very nice – the old fort is worth to visit. Sadly I missed the famous Friday cattle marked, but experienced a small goat market in Bahla which was amazing. Tourism hasn’t had much influence here in this region. All people were friendly and welcoming. Impressive was the drive up a dirt road to the Grand Canyon of Oman, which can’t reach the original in the US, but still very worth to visit.
Mid week we changed location and work to Muscat. The capital of the Oman stretches along the ocean. The old part of Muscat is called Mutrah, with the Souk and fish market. Sadly the cruise ships stop here and masses of tourists float the city. The main thing to see is the Sultan Quaboos Grand Mosque which can be visited only in the morning for 2-3 hours and also Mutrah. Other than that there was not much time to do anything.
Food was very good with an Indian influence. As long you do not eat in hotels, food was cheap. Also the weather was great, sunshine almost every day. Temperatures were around 23-25C during the day and 15 during the night. Looks like I have to be back in March/April for a project at Green Mountain (Jebel Akhdar) and Muscat again.
I have to say, the pictures do look like holidays but were taken just in a short time and everythign was very close together. The business part was quite a bit of work…
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