Jacqui and Richard Abroad: Thursday, Oct 9th – West of Salalah, and Frankincense trees

We left again around 9am but this time, we headed west of the city. We drove off road for a while as our driver was trying to find a sinkhole that he hadn’t been too for 38 years. He did find it and was really happy about it. We enjoyed the drive there as we were practically going straight up the mountain at times. He also took us to see frankincense trees, which basically grow sparsely here and there in the desert. He cut the bark, and the sap started pouring, which when it hardens a bit, is the frankincense that people use for medicinal purposes and to burn as incense (yes, it smells like church!). We also saw some plants of aloe vera, growing in the wild, buy frankincense trees. After that, we got back on the main road and drove for a while until we got to a place where we could see blowholes. A blowhole is a hole in the ground, close to the coast, where water spurts from because of the waves hitting the shore. It is pretty cool to see. We then drove up a mountain before driving all the way down to the beach. We went down at least 3000 feet basically driving all the way along a cliff. Twenty-eight hairpin turns latter, we were at a beautiful beach, with a bunch of fishing boats that were just coming in from their daily expedition. It was quite interesting to see them sort out the fish, put it in big coolers and then get ready to drive the day’s catch to the Salalah market. Our guide then took us back the same road we had come down from and we headed back to our hotel. That was the end of our three half-day expeditions, which were all very different but all the same very interesting. In late afternoon, we visited the frankincense museum, and then went for dinner. It was another very interesting day!