Salalah, Oman April 2, 2007

Salalah was known as Arabia's "perfume city" for its role as the center for Frankincense trade. It is a city surrounded by a dramatic mountain range and has a surprisingly beautiful beach area to it's south. We experienced both. We drove down to the beach and then took the incredibly steep climb, (by bus) to Job's tomb, which is on the summit of a mountain. Present day Salalah has just under 200,000 people. The landscape is unique. We mostly saw dirt, sand, jagged mountains and very little grass. However, it seems that Oman is the vacation place to be from mid-June to mid-Sept. Why you ask?? Because it rains in this desert!! All the people from Saudi Arabia come here to see rain! How about that! It is the first place I have ever been that the rainy season is the highest tourist season! However, if you have lived in the desert your whole life and never have seen rain, it would be very refreshing to stand in a storm. You see they get monsoon rains!! I found it hard to believe and you will too when you see all the sand but they say it is true. Centuries ago, traders passed thorugh Salalah from Mesopotamia, the Persian Empire, and beyond in search for frankincense, making it a major center for trade in the coveted perfume making. Pre-Islamic tombs and grave sites, some of which believed to be up to 2,000 years old are scattered all over the rugged mountain range. We we to see one, Job's. Salalah is home to one of the Sultan's palaces. No pictures there though and we could not stop but we snapped what we could. There are banana trees and coconut trees in groves here that almost look like the oasis Buggs Bunny would see in one of his cartoons. The history of Salalah dates back more than 4,500 years and sites surrounding the area are mentioned in Biblical passages. Among the most intriguing places of religious allure, the Prophet Job's tomb on Mt. Eiteen (Jabal). It is 30 miles outside of Salalah and like I said, we went there. Many people of Christian faith, Jews and Muslims make pilgrimages to this place. You have to have you head covered...here we go again. I hope you enjoy our visit to one of the most interestly strange places I've ever been. Warning.....CAMELS!!!!!
You won't believe this but camels are wild here. Yes, they are pests like opossums, raccoons, and deer on the roads here. They cause more accidents than anything else on the road. We did have the horrible experience of seeing a road kill camel. It was GROSS!! I can't imagine the damage it did to the vehicle that hit it and I'm sure the people in the vehicle had to have died as this creature was enormous. Sad though. In order for you to have some feeling of the camels, here, there, and everywhere, I posted several. I could have posted more, as truely, we were practically stepping over them!!!!
Camels solo, camels in groups, camels in the low lands, camels in the highlands......

Camels at the beach!!!

Camels on the roadside! I found a nice Muslim man that did not mind having his picture made in front of the cave at the beach. It must have been caused by many thousands of years of erosion.
The sign says, "Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints, and enjoy your visit". They should have signs like this posted on the Alabama Gulf Coast!!
Did you have any idea that there would be a beach this beautiful in Oman?? Not one person was on it. They only come to the beach on Thursdays and Fridays. Those are their weekend days. The women are not allowed to swim. That would not go over well in our family unit!

One lonely tree in a rocky dried up creekbed.

The kids posed for an under the cave picture for me.

The Gulf of Oman, meeting the desert, meeting jagged rocks was quite a site. And most unexpected.

Why do the kids always have to get so close to the edge??

This was more typical of what we would see. sand, dirt and mountains that look like Arizona. This is what traders travelled thousands of miles to get, Frankincense.
We tried to get the most up close picture possible for you to see the sap on the tree. How many of you have ever gotten pine sap on you from hiding behind a big pine tree playing hide and seek?? That is exactly what Frankincense feels lie on your fingers. STICKY. This is how they arvest it. Then they dry it out and make it into rock like crystal forms. They bag it and sell it for about $3.00 per kilo. Which is about 2.2 pounds.

Here is a picture of the entire tree. They are small in height. They look like they discard their bark much like a birch tree at home.



Charles is getting a sticky sampling. Our guide is trying to convince Kathleen that she must try some on her hand and enjoy the fragrance. I am not much on perfume or fragrances of any type to be honest. I hated not to like the smell of Frankincense as it was one of the gifts brought to the baby Jesus. I have to tell you honestly, I think those kings brought Frankincense to the baby Jesus because it was hard to get, not because they thought that Jesus would enjoy the smell. It has a VERY strong smell not really pungant but close. People LOVE it here. They burn it, drink eat and eat it. I passed. They (the people of Oman), say that it has healing powers. I did not buy any, so sorry to those who were hoping for some. I just could not tolerate the smell.


Our next stop was to go to Mt. Eiteen. This is the resting place of the prophet Job. For those of you who are not familiar with Job, Let me go through what I know. Many of you may know more but consider this the reader's digest version. Job was a man blessed with a wife a family, many goats, sheep, donkeys and camels. He was considered by many a very rich man of his day. He was a man of great faith. Job lost his children in a collapse of buildings and all his animal. He then had horrible health issuses like boils all over his body. Through it all he never lost faith in God. He was rewarded by his faith by being able to have 10 more children with his wife and received animals two fold what he had before. He is known for his patience. It would have taken a lot of patience to live through the horrors he did. Also as a reward he lived to be 140 years old! In this small open box on the ground is a footpprint preserved of the prophet Job. The only covering for this opening was a two by two piece of wood. Our guide took the covering off to show it to us. Can you see it??

This is another view of the footprint.

This is the tomb of Job. It had some Arabic writing on the top of it but I did not find out what it said!! I did find out what the "guard" was doing. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of him. He had a set of beads in his hands that he was working feverishly like an old Italian woman in the back of a Catholic church would her rosary beads! They have prayer beads in Islamic faith that they have the same prayer they say over and over again. The man was very devote in his prayers. He sits by the garve site and watches people walk by in tour groups. I wonder what he thinks of us?? Job actually lived on the grounds where we were. There was an outside area right next to his burial place where he actually went to pray. It was mossed covered rock area that had only a dirt floor.

There was a beautiful chandelier above Job's grave.


These are pictures of the people's houses that were at the top of the mountain. They lived within 200 yards of the tomb. Very flat housing with rocky yards. No lawns to mow here!
Next stop was to see their bananas and coconuts. They actually do grow them both here. Margis and Dave enjoyed their coconut water/milk.

Grant and Kathleen were not so sure they liked it. Coconut water/milk would be a lot better cold. Ours was warm from the sun and not good in my book. It was really nice of them to offer it to us but I was looking for a diet Coke!Another souq!! This souq was not as marvelous and old as the one in Muscat. We dd manage to find a few things though. For those who have forgotten, a souq is a shopping market. Here, they had a lot of perfume. Nicholas ran through like he was being punished.
The Sultan has his summer home her. This is all we got to see!! The very top of it. It is TOTALLY surrounded by these walls and nobody can go in. The Sultan likes to be here during the rainy season as well!! Go figure!

It seems there is an ongoing debate on who has the best belly dancers and who invented the belly dancing art. This gal was beautifula and put on a wonderful belly dancing show for us all. We have learned that the Egyptians say they have the best belly dancing girls because they are of the Nile. We will see....