Salalah, Oman (Itinerary)

After a day at sea along the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, we sail into Salalah, Oman. We don't normally spend a lot of time photographing container ships, but this one glowed in the morning light.

The port shuttle dropped us off in a lot filled with a long line of taxis, but we walked out of the lot and saw this mausoleum sign.

 
But wait, what are those hanging balls in the acacia bushes in front of the wall. Then we saw the yellow birds. I looked them up and they are Rüppell's weavers. We spent some time watching them go in and out of their cool nests.

Then we walked through the gate to the mausoleum.

 
A nice vegetable garden with squash, peppers, eggplants, and various herbs.

 
We struck up a conversation with the caretaker. We assumed that this was his personal garden.

Looking back toward the port and... 

...the long string of taxis lined up where the port shuttle drops its passengers.

    
The beach was across the street from the drop-off point and the mausoleum.

As was this royal yacht enclave.

 
We walked to the top of the bluff overlooking the ocean and saw a large stingray swimming in the turquoise waters below.

 
We got back on the port shuttle and went to our room to don our snorkel gear. No coral, but a pleasant swim with a nice collection of fish and cave explorations. It had been a long time since we'd done any snorkeling, so we both ended up with some leg cramps. We swam slowly back to the beach where we did a little beach combing before heading back to the ship.

The crew had been busy and had set up an Arabian themed sail-away party. (The hookah pipes were only for show.) It would be several sea days before we reached out next port:  Aqaba, Jordan, which would be yet another new country for us. We sailed at top speed around Yemen for safety sake and we learned later that the bombing in Yemen took place as we were passing by, but we didn't see or hear anything. We were now in the Red Sea. Dean's Log: Salalah

Aqaba, Jordan (Itinerary)

 
We watched the early morning sail in. Countries are very close here in the Gulf of Aqaba with Egypt to the south and Israel to the north. Egypt is on the African continent while Jordan and Israel are on the Asian continent.

 
We took a tour with Charlotte Holland to Petra, another World Heritage site. Adnan, our guide, was well informed and stopped the bus at this poster showing the line of kings. After King Hussein (on the left) died, his son Abdullah (Middle) became king. Next in line is his son Prince Hussein. We learned a lot in the 2-hour bus ride to Petra.

A Bedouin with his goats has the right of way across a divided highway.

Adnan told us that while many Bedouins have houses, they also tend to their goats or sheep as they've always done.

The rift in the rock is the entryway into Petra, a city that was unknown to the western world for many centuries.

Here's our group with Charlotte following Adnan. We didn't stay with the group for long. We walked ahead.

On a sign at the entrance to Petra (with my annotation) was built (carved) as far back as the 3rd century BCE and was "discovered" by a westerner in 1812. This was an important cross road of trading routes.

The hike into Petra is divided into three distinct parts: Visitor Center to The Siq; Inside the Siq itself (the siq is a narrow, water-cut passage through about a mile of sandstone, whose walls rise nearly 300 feet above you); and then into Petra itself. If you walk just into the middle of Petra, you'll end up doing about 4 ½ to 5 miles round trip.
Horses with colorful saddles await riders for the first section of the trip to the entrance of the Siq. We walked.

Horse-drawn carriages were available for the whole ride to the beginning of the city. Here a growing family has ridden in a carriage out of the city up to the Visitors Center. Some people in our group hired carriages so they would not have to walk.

We are still on the first part of the walk in because this was still open landscape, which reminded us of some of the US badlands and painted desert that we've seen, but of course no one had carved tombs and cities into them.

 
The writing is on the walls.

I thought that these might be tulips since they are native to the region, but no. These were sea squills (Drimia maritima), which develop a large spike of white or pink florets.

 
This cave reminded us of skull rock that we saw in Joshua Tree National Park 0n our 2009 adventure to the US southwest. At last we entered the siq.

 
A dramatic entry point...

 
Dean is mock-blocked from entering the siq and looking back toward the entry point.

Trees grew from cracks in the sandstone.

 
An aqueduct had been constructed on each side of the siq to carry much-need water to cisterns. The water supply here in the desert was one reason it became a crossroads in ancient times.