Muscat

Muslim Holiday= American Roadtrip!

Last week we had a total of 10 days off from school due to yet another Muslim holiday.  We are racking up the no-school days lately between American and Muslim holidays!  In fact between now and Christmas we are only in school 12 days!  I sometimes think I might need to do some homeschoolin'!  Not really...
So... 10 days off means we need to hit the road with our travel buddies the Sassos!  This time we headed to Muscat, the capital city of Oman.  This was a about a 6 hour adventure that included some serious border crossings.  This is how it went....Load 4 kids into mini van with too much stuff, snacks, plastic emergency barf bags, movies and hidden booze in the secret floor-board compartment.  Stop at the grocery store on the way out for cash and breakfast snacks.  Spit out in my hand the bite of the so called "kolache" made with chicken sausage. Drive and drive to first check point where we were just asked to show passports and guard with machine gun asked me not to take his picture....After I took it.  Ooops...

Keep driving and pass a building with many people in a line that DO NOT look like locals.  They look like holidaying expats...Hmmmm?  Should we stop?  Nahhhhhh..keep driving.  

Stop and potty and take these pictures!

Get to Omani border and walk in to very large passport/border facility.  Wait in line with Sassos which means 6 car-stir-crazy-kids including one toddling-don't-hold-me-monkey-baby.  Get stared at by many Non-Americans.  Potty in FILTHY bathroom with no toilet paper.  This is a common theme in the Middle East.  NO toilet paper.  Finally get to window only to be told that we need to go back to last passport checkpoint about 10 miles back and get a stamp.  The place with the lines of holidaying-looking-expats.  The place we whizzed by-

Omani Border Passport Facility

LOAD UP!  BACKTRACK!  Drive...Drive...See this....A mosque in the middle of the dessert..Check out all the men outside praying. Arrive at the location where all the holidaying expats were standing in a line and join them.  Make jokes about how we flew past it and just assumed that we Americans were exempt from that step.  I mean surely someone would have explained these steps to us from our hotel?  NO..It is every man for himself in this part of the world----Get something done to passports...not sure what.  Drive....Drive.....Drive......

Get back to large passport/border facility and repeat line waiting.  Passports stamped yet again!  On the road to Muscat!  See this....

Keep  driving and driving and driving....Are we there yet?

                                        When you get to the gold horses you are almost there!  Seriously, when you get directions anywhere in this part of the world you are given them with landmarks NOT street names.  Drive past the Sheraton, turn left by the large incense burner statue, keep going through the gold horses...Not kidding!  These were the directions to the hotel!

We made it!  

Oh wait!  Must drive through large hole cut out in the mountain!

Let this girl roam and check out the hotel!

Splash around....

Catch a crab...

Have a little beach time before bed...

Clean up after a long day of driving!  Ready for day 2!

So this is how day 2 in Muscat went!  

Do some lazy river floating...

Chase this monkey around...

Eat!  Lots of eating!

Do a little snorkeling..

Play in the pool...

Take some glamour shots...

Investigate the really course, weird, dark sand-

More monkey chasing...

Do a little snoozing.....

Bury some kids!

Snuggle with my man

Play "kiss the ouchie" game over and over

Play with some coolers..

Check out some camels roaming through..

Touch the camel...

Chill out after a fun long day and watch some Star Wars!

Get a sitter and have a fun night out!

Bring on Day 3!  We went into town and saw some sights of Muscat.  Muscat is the capital city of Oman and served as one of the most important trading posts between the east and the west in the first century.  Hence the many original forts that are scattered all along the mountainous coastline to protect the goods!  I loved seeing this little town that has worked so hard to preserve their history...We went to the Muttrah Souk which is a very old shopping district in Oman. Souk means market.  It was composed of crowded little passageways with a really beautiful wood ceiling.  The kids loved searching for a perfect treasure...Omanis are famous for their silver which I found fun!.... The pictures show the details best!  After we left we drove through the town looking at the sights and of course saw many, many goats.  

I thought this was really pretty..no clue what it was though

Even Lilly found it all amazing!

Lilly was done with us this day!  She needed her 3 B's!!!

Time to go home!

Views on our way out...

I almost titled this blog post "Animals in the Back of Small Trucks"

Back across the border...Back to Dubai...I won't go into the details of our LONG journey home.  It involved sitting in a border line in our car for over an hour, people cutting in line (a common thing here!), Olivia crying and crying "I want to go home!"...Let's just say it was a moment when I had never been happier to see Villa 5!


Someone told me that a vacation with 4 kids is not a vacation.  It is just a change of scenery. So true!  It was a great time but Mama was glad to be home!