Muscat - the Capital of Oman

Which is not to be confused with a "muskrat" - a small sort of rat-like rodent thing. I say this because I still can't get it right - I think "Muscat" and I say "muskrat." What can I say, I was educated in Kentucky.

That aside, what a fabulous country! Outrageously blue ocean on one side of Muscat which was ringed by "Lord of the Rings"-like mountains on the other side. White stone buildings, brightly colored beautifully tiled mosques, palm trees, 70 degree weather:












We were there only two days (last weekend) but managed to cover 600 km visiting Nizwa, the first Omani capital, and Jebel Shams, the tallest mountain in Oman. That's a lot of driving time (translation = I read almost 200 pages of "Enders Shadow") and about 2 hours of it was spent on this unfortunate dirt road:



The cultural highlight of the trip was probably our driver, Abudullah. He was, well, extremely pungent (to the point of necessitating the rolling down of windows), but full of all kinds of information, friendly and very chatty. And as you can see by his stylish scarf use, he found the unseasonably cool 70 degrees uncomfortable. Which made my colleague comment that "dressed like that, he looked like a CNN terrorist"...



Those of you who know me well know that I'm not much for the hours preceeding 10am, but this seemed worth it: