Out and about: Jebel Sifah

One of my favourite stretches of beach in Oman is at Jebel Sifah. It's one of those places that if in doubt we'll just head there to hang out or have a BBQ. 

So when Jebel Sifah invited my family and me to spend the weekend there, we didn't take long to accept the invite. 

We usually get there by car. The drive takes you through the mountains on long windy roads that open up to pools of water. But, this time, we arrived via water taxi, which is a completely different experience. The taxi leaves from Marina Bandar Rowda and arrives in the marina of Jebel Sifa about 45 minutes later, taking you past the Al Bustan Hotel, Shangri-La and then stretches of mountains. 

When we arrived, we checked into a huge two bedroom flat with a view of the sea. The development is very much like The Wave, with a mixture of flats and houses, coffee shops, places to eat, and, most excitingly, a brand new dive centre. 

One of the great things is that while you have access to the beach and sea, you are also free to enjoy the pool at the hotel Sifawy (which also has a impressive Friday brunch and dinner buffet). 

We had the option to take part in water activities, too. Diving was unfortunately cancelled because of strong winds, but my husband did have a go at jet skiing (I was too scared). 

We also got a chance to look at how the development will expand in the future, with the addition of a couple of 5-star hotels, a golf course, and more houses and flats. It will be impressive. The flats we stayed in are available to rent, either via the hotel for short-term/weekend stays, but there is the option for long-term renting, too.  

We had a great weekend, thank you to Jebel Sifah and Muriya for having us. We'll be back! 

Eating Out: Hotel Alila

My attempts to explore Jebel Akhdar so far haven't gone so well, the car deciding to break down just before the assent on the last trip (link) being a great example. More recently we did make it up the mountain, but with a grandad, a pregnant woman, and two children to consider trekking wasn't on our to-do list. We did end up at the Hotel Alila for lunch though, so I'm not complaining.

Once you reach the top of Jebel Akhdar the hotel is quite a drive in, but the view en route is amazing. Despite the name, the mountain isn't as green as I expected (I miss green), but I was told for Oman it is. 

The hotel is quite impressive, from afar it isn't very imposing, barely noticeable. All buildings are built from or at least faced with local stone, blending into the surroundings. The outside space has been left in what looks like a natural state, lots of stones, flowers and trees adding to the beauty. 

The hotel is actually set on the edge of a canyon, I imagine the view from the rooms must be quite breathtaking, but you do get a good view from the restaurant if you are brave enough to walk to the edge. We'll be saving our baisas and hopefully stay for a night or two one day. 

 

But back to our reason for being there and the Juniper restaurant. We arrived for a late lunch so we had the restaurant to ourselves. The menu is quite modern, with the obvious Arabic touches. They also have a good selection of non-alcoholic cocktails.

We were served bread to begin with, surprisingly with olive oil and crushed nuts, a combination I hadn't tried before. We had a pumpkin soup starter, which was very good and I selected the vegetable tagine as my main, while my husband chose steak. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a steak snob, I much prefer to cook it at home and never choose it at a restaurant, but to my surprise Juniper's offering was impressive. The steak was cooked medium-well and was still juicy and tender. I managed to convince my husband that we should really share our meal....so he could get to try more of the menu, of course. Finally for dessert I chose the cheesecake. After this I was stuffed and ready for the food-induced sleep back down the mountain.

Unsurprisingly, the restaurant isn't cheap, for 7 people (5 adults, 2 children) we paid 160OR. That was for 4 soups, 7 drinks, 7 mains (two of which were childrens), 2 deserts, and 2 coffees. We'll probably have to save a few more baisas if we do ever go back to stay the night since the restaurant is the only place for food for miles. 

For more information about the hotel visit the link!

Camping: 1000 Nights Camp, Wahiba Sands

I assume most people work up from regular camping to glamping. I'm not convinced I will enjoy a true camping experience, but when my sister arrived in Muscat and said she wanted to see the sands I decided that this time we should experience something a bit more "authentic".

We booked a stay at 1000 Nights Camp. The camp is an hour drive in from the main road; so it's far, approximately 40km in, and you need to know where you are going because once you get deep into the desert there is no phone signal. Annoyingly, the GPS coordinates on the website are wrong, but I have included them below. As you would expect, driving that far into the desert you do get the sense of total isolation, it is easy to be the only car in sight and when you are trying to beat sunset it adds to the thrill of the drive.

When you eventually get there, you arrive at a very authentic looking camp, plus a swimming pool. The tents are typical of what you would expect and depending on your budget you can go basic or luxury. We opted for the Sheikh tent, which has no AC but does have its own "bathroom". Since at this time of year it actually gets very cold at night not having AC is not a problem. I would suggest you take a jumper, and some socks.

Having never been camping showering outside was certainly a new experience for me. I'm not sure I was really that clean though after my 30 second shower, but the lukewarm water and cold air certainly woke me up.

When we first arrived at the camp we wanted to catch the sunset from the top of the dunes again, but since this camp doesn't offer a drive up there and we had to give ourselves plenty of time to walk up the dune, which is steep and tough! The climb reminded me why I really should start doing more exercise. What's nice is that the camp does have sandboards for you to use so if you can drag more than yourself up the dune, it's a fun way to come back down.

When evening came we had a BBQ dinner, which was ok, but I think by this time we were all exhausted, a little cold, and ready for sleep. Breakfast the next morning was good, freshly cooked omelets and crepes were available as well as cereals, fruit, and sausages. We then wandered around the camp before checking out, taking a look at the animals and once it started to heat up I realised why the camp also has a pool.

We heading off to Wadi Bani Khalid again for another explore of the area, which was just as beautiful as the first time.

You can read about Wadi Bani Khalid, here, and our first experience in Wahiba Sands at the very glamourous Desert Nights Camp, here. 

Off-roading: Khoud valley

For our second road trip we decided to stay closer to home. The sky still looked overcast and knowing it could rain any minute we started the morning off slowly with breakfast at More Cafe (which needs a post of its own). Just as we finished our tea, the skies opened and Muscat had about 20 minutes of quite heavy rainfall.

As a European, rain isn't that novel, so it was funny to watch how excited the local people were about it, even going outside to take pictures.

Once the rain stopped it seemed like the perfect time to head out and see the effect on the wadis, which are valleys formed by water and that are dry except for when the rains come. Unsurprisingly, there is little drainage here, on the most part it is not needed, and it is easy for roads to get flooded; the wadis after rainfall fill and act as a drainage course.

We drove down to part of the Khoud valley, a 20-minute drive from Muscat. Wadi driving is a bit of a thing here anyway and it’s common to see convoys of families setting up BBQs (and even camp) and youths hooning about in 4x4s and on quad bikes. After the rain was no different, and I'm willing to bet that even more people were out, curious as we were to see the effect.

The valley is actually quite long and I couldn't tell you exactly at what point we entered, although I do know we were headed in the direction of the dam. There were pools of water and we were able to drive down some of wadi. Even though we have a 4x4, we didn't want to test its capability and potentially end up stuck so we parked up and decided to explore on foot. It should be said that the locals didn't seem to have these fears and for the one that we did see get stuck, people were quick to help.

We didn't manage to explore as much as we would have liked as we sensed that more rain was on the way and decided to head back to the car and exit the wadi before the masses. We were in luck that just as we began to drive off the rain started and we quickly saw everyone jumping into their cars and beginning to get away. For what doesn't seem like heavy rain, you could see the wadi filling up quickly, and there was a lot of urgency to get out. What was even more surprising was the number of cars trying to get into the wadi, but we didn't stick around to find out what happened to them!