A bunch of things that happened next

From Istanbul we flew to Muscat, Oman. We landed at about 8:30 at night, picked up our rental car, and were off. Our first stop in Muscat was “The Mall of Oman.” Guess what??… there was even a SnowOman inside where you could ice skate and sled. The temperature in Oman has been about 85 degrees F and this is their winter. In the summer it can get up to 130 degrees! So the thought of ice skating and sledding is kind of fun.

On our first full day in Oman we met up with a couple that is friends with our lake buddies at home. The couple took us out to lunch at the Grand Hyatt which had teal pools and was right on the water. They were sweet and gave us lots of tips for our upcoming road trip through Oman. Some of the roads we thought we were going to take they advised us to find an alternate route because our little car wouldn’t have made it up and over them.

On day two we took a boat out to a set of islands off the coast of Oman called the Daymaniat Islands. They are well known for the turtle population that lives close to shore. We were able to snorkel with the turtles as they munched on the sea grass in the corals below. There were so many of them, sometimes in groups of eight or ten flying through the crystal clear waters. Beyond the turtles there were lots of colorful fish and even a ray. At our second snorkel spot we saw some brightly colored coral and even more fish, eels and sea urchins. But the highlight of the second dive spot was spotting the black tip reef shark. Many of them surveyed the sea floor 5 meters below us. Ahhhhhhh. We were hooked on ocean life. Photos below taken by our guide … but we saw all of this in real life! Not seen are the black tipped reef sharks… gotta keep something for ourselves (oh – and guide had to stay in the boat for that part).

After these early adventures we set off for a 10 day road trip through the mountains, desert, and north coast of Oman. We’ll let you know how it was when we return!