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So says Cassio in Othello.

We are really enjoying our time in Cyprus. The people, the food, the history, the weather. We’ve always had a bias towards small countries. We like their lack of inflated big-country bumptiousness.

One of our first stops on the road is Choirokoitia, a neolithic settlement.

Funny story: to get there, we drive to the quaint village of Agios Iakovos Persis, then walk a few kilometres along a trail to the site itself.

When we get there, we have to jump a fence in order to get in. We then walk down to the ticket office and sheepishly buy two tickets. We are busted by the attendants, but they admire our athleticism more than they condemn our skirting of the rules. Lucky us.

There are many of these sites in Cyprus. Early on – over 10,000 years ago – people from the Near East daring the Mediterranean in small boats bumped into Cyprus and decided to stay.

Driving further along the south coast, we visit another ancient town, Amathus.

Which is like a warm-up to prepare us for our next stop, the seaside ruins of Kourion.

On our way to Paphos, we drive though the British Sovereign Base Area of Akrotiri. These areas exist because of local political complications (there are few political phenomenon in this part of the world that are not complicated.) The base housing looks like it belongs more in Leicestershire than in Cyprus.

Paphos is so enjoyable, we extend our stay to five days. This is the view out of our hotel window.

Paphos, of course, has its own extensive ruins.

This is a mosaic of Theseus and the Minotaur. Very clever, the labyrinth-like concentric circles.

(This house belonged to the Proconsul of Cyprus – that is, the Roman governor.)

Like most places, there are many cats here. Mostly very friendly, like this one.

We like to imagine the thousands of people that thronged these streets two millennia ago.

Another Paphos attraction are the so-called ‘Tombs of the Kings‘. (No actual kings were buried here.)

I’ve always liked cyclamen blossoms. They remind me of flaming comets.

For Maria’s birthday, by special request we spend the day beach-hopping.

The beaches are wonderfully uncrowded at this time of year.

As usual, I read while Maria swims. The beach is covered with stone towers that people make. What cultic purpose they serve is unknown.

Sight or Insight of the Day

There are a lot of Russians here in Cyprus.

There were a lot in Egypt, as well. It’s no surprise that a brutal dictatorship would have no bones about admitting the citizens of a fellow brutal dictatorship for some fun in the sun. Cyprus, however, is an EU member and a liberal Western democracy. It doesn’t look good to be so welcoming to Russians and their blood money these days.

But Cyprus has hitched its star to the Putin regime. Unlike Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, who have barred Russians from the country, the place is still heaving with Ruskies.

New year, new country. We fly EgyptAir from Sharm el Sheikh to Cairo to Larnaca in Cyprus.

It’s a relief to be in a non-Muslim country for the first time in months. There’s a palpable sense of freedom to do, be, or say absolutely anything you can imagine. In other places, there is always the oppressive sense of having to rein yourself in.

Larnaca is the perfect place to arrive. It’s a small city, easy to get around. We undergo culture shock at the cleanness and orderliness of the place, the absence of trash and crumbling infrastructure. Every alleyway in the area we stay in seems to lead to the sea.

We find a street with an auspicious name.

Larnaca started life as Kition in the 13th century BC. These are the first of many ruins we see.

Here’s the Church of Saint Lazarus in Larnaca. Apparently, Lazarus ended up in Cyprus after being raised from the dead by Jesus. He eventually died here.

In town, we visit the small but excellent Pierides Museum. We learn that the replica historic ceramics in their shop are made locally. We drop in at the Studio Ceramics gallery.

On the way to Limassol, we stop by the sea in several places. These white rocks are near a place called Governor’s Beach.

I would name them the ‘Moby Dick Rocks’.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We plan on driving ourselves around Cyprus. To that end, we acquire our latest rental car, a peppy Ford Fiesta.

He’s named after one of Cyprus’s eminent citizens, the Stoic philosopher Zeno.

Winding down in both senses: as in, ten days of doing nothing in one spot over the holidays, and also counting down our remaining time in Egypt.

Dahab is a good place to spend Christmas and New Year. It’s very touristy. Which means lots of harrassing merchants and haranguing tour vendors. But also lots of restaurants and cafés.

We have a rooftop room in a small hotel in a quiet part of town. (I wouldn’t quite call it a penthouse.) One side faces the mountains.

The other side faces the Gulf of Aqaba. You can see Saudi Arabia across the water.

The days turn into a satisfying routine. We get croissants for breakfast from the German bakery down the street. Maria goes swimming. I sit in the sun and read. We go out for dinner. Rinse and repeat.

We break up this idyll of idleness with a couple of day trips. One is a snorkeling excursion.

It’s not very pleasant. It’s disorganized. (Chaotic, actually.) All of the equipment is unsafe and falling apart. We are pushed from one site to the other with no explanations. There’s usually trash everywhere.

When we get to do any actual snorkeling, it’s great – the Blue Hole and Ras Abu Galum are rich in corals and fish. But I had visions of tranquilly floating around on our own. Nope – we’re supposed to follow a ‘guide’.

Thankfully, Maria had a good time.

I enjoyed our second excursion much more. For one thing, it is entirely self-organized. We want to go to St. Catherine’s Monastery. We are not interested in departing in the middle of the night to ‘see the sunrise over Mt. Sinai’ – why anyone would want to do such a thing is beyond me. We just need a drive there and back.

By great good fortune, Maria makes the acquaintance of Ahmed, a Dahab taxi driver who’s happy to drive us there and back – a round trip of 256 kilometres – for around $70 USD. (Half the price of organized-tour transport.)

Ahmed picks us up at our hotel. The drive through the early morning desert is very scenic.

This is the third thing I can cross off my list of must-see places in Egypt.

The area within the walls has a lot of character. The monastery is manned by bearded and be-skirted Greek Orthodox monks.

The Basilica is the visible hub of the monastery.

The interior is a jumble of mosaics and icons. No photos allowed.

Our favourite part is the collection of icons and manuscripts. They are now in a space designed, built, and paid for by Western donors – and it shows.

This is a direct descendant of the burning bush mentioned in Exodus 3:1-17.

And this is a direct descendant of the goats mentioned in Leviticus 16:7-11. (OK, I just made that up.)

The time comes to pack up our things and go. It’s been a relaxing ten days.

We arrange for Ahmed to pick us up and drive us to the airport in Sharm el Sheikh, 100 kilometres away through the desert.

Our flight doesn’t leave until 4:00 AM. We plan to leave our baggage at the airport, the go into town to kill time until later in the evening.

One morning, we set out on foot for a Nile-side stroll. Like Alexandria, central Cairo has lots of Italian/French-style apartment buildings in various states of dilapidation.

Along the way, we stop for an excellent coffee in this place. The staff are very friendly and the coffee is superb, with some added exotic spices.

We pass this office, wondering if it’s a serious government department. Elections here exist only to confirm that whoever happens to be president stays in office until Hell freezes over.

We walk to the southern tip of Rhoda Island.

We’ve come to see the Nilometer on the southern tip of the island..

The pillar dates from the ninth century, I think . The decoration up top is nice, too.

Next door is an exhibit on the life of Umm Kulthum, an Egyptian singer of mythic fame in the Arab world. Even young Egyptians hold her in high regard. Personally, I think her habit of hobnobbing with Egypt’s dictators detracts from the ‘woman of the people’ schtick.

Zamalek is a ritzy neighbourhood on Gezira Island where we go in search of a Fair Trade gift shop.

On the long walk home, the riverside promenade is full of rollerbladers.

Next day, we visit the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. According to wikipedia:

‘It was designed by the prominent Egyptian architect, Saiid Ibn Kateb Al-Farghany, who was an Orthodox Christian, the same engineer who designed the Nilometer. The mosque’s original inscription slab identifies the date of completion as AH 265 (878/879 AD).’

This dove finds a perfect place for a nest in a mosque lamp.

The mosque has an unusual spiral minaret. For a nominal fee, an attendant lets us climb to the top.

Our next stop is the Museum of Islamic Art. Our route takes us through some picturesque neighbourhoods.

The imposing Cairo Citadel. We give it a wide berth because the army still uses it, so we’re told.

Around the corner from the museum, we admire this street dog that has found a good place for a snooze.

The Museum of Islamic Art has a well-curated and well-displayed collection of Islamic goodies.

Our last full day in Cairo. We start with the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which opened in 2021.

An apropos temporary exhibit features Tintin and Snowy in an entertaining Orientalist fantasy.

The most impressive exhibit (for me) were the tastefully arrayed 22 royal mummies, including such powerhouses as Ramses II and Hatshepsut (no photos allowed.) It’s fascinating to see the actual frail, shrunken remains of these rulers that constructed colossal edifices – some of which we’ve seen – and loom so large in Egyptian history.

The rest of the museum is thankfully sparse in quantity but very good in quality.

Besides having a pleasant restaurant, the museum also has nice grounds to enjoy.

From the New to the Old. Our last visit of the day is back to the Medieval part of town. We take an Uber to the Bab al-Nasr for a last wander around the Khan el-Khalili market.

Sight or Insight of the Day

While having lunch in the chic restaurant of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, the party at the next table catch my attention. There is a very debonair-looking Australasian gentleman who looks familiar. He’s well-dressed, clear-spoken, and confident. He wears an Akubra hat at a jaunty angle. His entourage is well-behaved. They get up to leave.

It’s uncharacteristic of me, but I just have to ask, otherwise I’ll never know. ‘Excuse me. Are you Sam Neill?’

‘No, I’m afraid not‘, he replies.

‘I’ll bet you get asked that a lot‘ I say.

‘Actually, no‘ he deadpans ‘I’m usually mistaken for George Clooney or Brad Pitt.‘

After our nine-day group tour, we have five days to spend in Cairo before flying to Dahab in the Sinai Peninsula.

As mentioned, Cairo is a city of ten million closely-packed residents. It’s pretty chaotic.

Our hotel is on Talaat Harb street, just a few minutes walk from a Metro station and the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square.

This is the venerable old Egyptian Museum, a Cairo landmark for over a century.

We spend a few hours at the Egyptian Museum with our tour group. Now, we dedicate an entire day exploring it.

Egypt is building another mega-museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum. When it will actually open its doors is anybody’s guess.

Finds from the tomb of Tutankhamen are a big draw. There were over 5,000 objects placed there. We’ll limit ourselves to a single item.

The detail and workmanship is amazing. The footstool is covered with conquered enemies. (Considering he died at the age of 19, I don’t think Tutankhamen led any great hosts in pitched battles.)

The support struts are ducks (or geese) holding the bottom rollers in their beaks.

OK, we said we’d limit ourselves to one Tutankhamen item. Just one more – another richly-decorated chair.

The museum is full of praiseworthy stuff. This is a statue of Djoser, the pharaoh responsible for that step pyramid we visited a few entries ago, in front of some beautiful sea-green tiles from the same pyramid.

Here’s the Palette of Narmer. It’s world-famous – at least among history fans.

We see this depicted a lot in Egyptian art – a leader dominating a defeated rival while firmly grasping his man-bun.

Both of us really liked the possessions from a tomb of the royal couple, Yuya and Thuya. We’ve never heard of them before. After examining their belongings, it felt like they were old friends.

And just at random, an exquisite mummy mask.

Of course, all of these priceless treasures of world heritage are just a single Islamic revolution away from total destruction. It’s a good thing there’s still a lot of the original discoveries safe in Western museums.

Another place we revisit is the Khan el-Khalili bazaar in the historic centre of Cairo.

Maria and I succumb to the lure of all this unbridled capitalism: she buys a pair of scarlet camel-hide slippers and I purchase a lapis-lazuli ring.

Some of the architecture dates back centuries.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Getting around in Cairo is not for the faint-hearted. There is a Metro, which is a good way to get around. We take it one day to visit the Coptic Museum.

But the areas of interest you can get to by Metro are limited. They have Uber here, but often the places we visit are so jam-packed with pullulating humanity, there is no easy pickup-point.

And taking a taxi here always involves the unpleasant feeling of being skinned alive (financially) by the taxi drivers.

So we often walk to places. Where sidewalks exist, they are usually overrun with impromptu markets.

Or, in areas where there are government buildings, ‘for security reasons’ ordinary people are diverted off of the sidewalk and onto the death-defying streets packed with crazed Cairo motorists.

Oh dear, we’re falling woefully behind on our blog entries. Once again, I blame the suboptimal internet service in Egypt.

Our cruise down the Nile goes on at a leisurely pace. We stop in Luxor for the night.

As the sun goes down, we go to the mighty Karnak Temple.

This is a scarab statue near Karnak’s Sacred Lake. Tourist lore says that if you circle it x-amount of times, you will be granted a wish.

Back in town, we stop at the centrally-located Temple of Luxor.

The early sunset makes for dramatic night-time visits to these places.

First thing next morning, we visit the temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

(We see the mummy of the woman herself in Cairo.)

There was a serious terrorist attack here in 1997. Of course, there is no mention of it during our visit.

Nearby is the Valley of the Kings.

Considering the great number of tourists that visit here year-round, it’s still an amazing experience to visit these tombs. Collectively, they are man-made creations of near-perfect artistry at a time when most people on the planet were still primitive hunter-gatherers.

Needless to say, modern Egypt is slightly less rich in ‘creations of near-perfect artistry’.

We pay extra to visit the tomb of Tutankhamen. This happens to be the centenary year of its discovery.

This really created a splash at the time, as Tutmania swept the globe..

The tomb’s trove of stupendous artifacts now reside in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

In fact, the only object remaing in the tomb is the modestly-draped mummy of the Pharaoh himself.

We visit four tombs. I’d love to come back at a future date and explore more of them. I believe this is the tomb of Merneptah. It’s over 3,000 years old.

Several tombs have ceilings that represent the stars of the night sky. We’ve noticed this in other sites in Egypt.

Here’s the tomb of…dang, I forget. They’re all pretty cool.

On the ceiling, looks like some god holding up the sky.

The search goes on for new finds, even after centuries of unearthed tombs. Local workers still dig in the old-fashioned ways.

Back on the tour. We stop for lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the Nile.

We hear about the winter conditions back home. Difficult to imagine from our current surroundings.

The next stage is a five-hour bus ride to the coastal town of Hurghada.

We spend two nights at this all-inclusive resort. My plan is to lounge by the pool sipping mojitos. Maria is more ambitious and goes off on a snorkeling expedition with some others.

We plan to do more snorkeling in Dahab – that’s my excuse for staying behind.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We leave early the next morning for the long drive back to Cairo.

Eventually, the empty desert becomes more populated. Many buildings in Egypt seem to be the same tawny colour as the sandy surroundings.

Cairo is a city of ten million people. It’s, um, interesting to spend time there. More in our next entry.

Something unprecedented for us: we go on a package tour. Having decided that getting from site to site would be more hassle than it’s worth, we sign up for a nine-day Egyptian tour that begins in Cairo. It’s much more fun than we would have imagined.

(In case you’re wondering, the title of this entry paraphrases the title of a schlocky movie I saw as a kid.)

Luck has a lot to do with it. Our group is made up of interesting and diverse people, most with a good sense of humour.

Let’s see, we have Annie from Australia, Manav and Upma from the US, Angel and Triscia from South Africa, Graham and John from Canada, Elvira and Denise from the Netherlands, the Sungai family from Zimbabwe, Kamal and Dreety from Mauritius, and many more.

First stop are the pyramids. Even after a lifetime of seeing these in films and photos, to see them in real life is overwhelming.

It’s kind of hard to give an idea how enormous they are. As we discover, for the ancient Egyptians, bigger is always better. But even with these mountains of house-sized stone blocks to protect them, grave robbers managed to plunder the mummies out of them.

“What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt’s King
Cheops erected the first pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin’s lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.” – Lord Byron, from Don Juan: Canto 1, stanza 219

They certainly make a great background for photos, though.

The same day, we visit the step pyramid of Djoser in nearby Saqqara.

This one pre-dates the Giza pyramids.

Some other senior civil servants are entombed nearby. Besides the great step pyramid, we explore a couple of these.

We fly from Cairo to Aswan. The next day, we embark for a short boat ride to the Temple of Philae.

Our guide, Ash, fills us in on the historic details.

One feature of every country we’ve been to so so far on this trip: there’s always someone around making bread.

At the Nubian Museum in Aswan, this woman and her family were very insistent that I take a selfie with them.

From Aswan, we awake for a long bus journey to Abu Simbel.

In case you don’t know, these were cut out from their original location in the 60s and relocated to avoid being submerged under the rising waters of the Lake Nasser reservoir.

I remember learning about this in elementary school and being fascinated at the time.

I can scratch one item off my childhood bucket list.

We also visit Kom Ombo temple. Half of this temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek.

Because of this, an on-site museum features lots of mummified crocs. Some are wrapped like submarine sandwiches.

And some are not. They get the same treatment as human mummies, that is, their interior organs are removed and the cavity filled with preservative substances.

For three nights, we cruise down the Nile on the MS Nile Jewel.

We see a woman on a deck chair is reading Death on the Nile. (As it turns out, we spend Christmas Eve watching the 2022 film version.)

Sight or Insight of the Day

Because of the crappy internet in Egypt, we are a bit behind in these entries. We are, in fact, in the Sinai beach resort of Dahab celebrating the holidays, after spending five days in Cairo.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Looking forward to new adventures in 2023.

That is, the two of us. We arrive in Alexandria from Dubai with a plan to spend a month in Egypt.

The first thing that happens: our binoculars are confiscated! Apparently, they have ‘military applications’. I pity any birdwatching groups entering the country with their expensive binos.

We decide to treat ourselves to a stay at the historic Cecil Hotel. The location is great.

Our hotel is right on the corniche. Modern Alexandria is all about this sea-facing promenade.

It’s lined with bustling cafés and crowds of people day and night.

A pair of Alexandrians find a spot to enjoy the evening.

So does this cat.

Our hotel is ideally situated for exploring the city.

Alexandria, of course, is famous for its great library of antiquity. It has an aspirational modern counterpart in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

It’s a magnet for bibliophiles.

Not surprising to see that most of the users are female. Intelligence will be how women advance in these countries.

We visit the catacombs. (Even though they are one of the premier tourist attractions here, our Uber driver spends half an hour circling aimlessly. We get to see some interesting parts of Alexandria, so that’s OK.)

Built in the Greco-Roman era, they’re deep. And Labyrinthine.

There are fancier tombs for the well-off.

And for the humble people, a simple niche.

Like many artifacts of the time, there is an interesting blend of ancient Egyptian and contemporary Hellenistic styles in everything.

We visit the Alexandria National Museum. It’s in the former US consulate.

Alexandria was once full of these elegant Italianate buildings. After Nasser kicked out the numerous cosmopolitan residents – Italians, Greeks, Armenians, French, Jews, etc. – in a fit of strident Arab nationalism, large parts of Alex fell into decay.

Now the streets are crowded with people trying to make a living. The economy of Egypt doesn’t exactly run at peak efficiency.

So far, people have been friendly here, as long as you are not being specifically targeted for some scam or other.

There is a lively market going on in the narrow alleys surrounding Pompey’s Pillar.

Many Egyptians, like most non-Western people, are cruel to dogs. But Egyptians are kind to cats. We wonder if this is a holdover from the cat worship of the their ancestors.

Under what was formerly known as Kom el-Dikka (that is, ‘hill of rubble’), archeologists have excavated a prosperous Roman neighborhood.

This is some ancient graffiti done by the supporter of a chariot-race champion, according to the explanatory plaque.

In the ruins of a nearby villa are some impressive mosaics, including this one of a parrot.

We visit Pompey’s Pillar, in what was the Serapeum of Alexandria in ancient times.

The pillar is all that’s left of a complex that used to look like this:

The Serapeum was also a branch of the famous Library, where anyone could borrow a scroll or two.

One day, we hire a car and driver to visit the area of the Battle of El Alamein. The military museum has some fairly interesting exhibits inside and lots of military equipment salvaged from the desert outside.

Winston Churchill had this to say:

“Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat.”

We like to pay our respects at Commonwealth War Graves whenever we come across one. No matter how squalid the country they’re in, they are always impeccably clean.

We find at least one Canadian among the numerous British, Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans.

It’s a shame that so many young men from around the world came to this distant wilderness to die defending Egypt from a dictatorial torturing warmonger like Hitler, only to have a like-minded dictatorial torturing warmonger like Nasser take over the country less than a decade later.

Because they’re in the same vicinity, we also visit the memorials of the Italians and the Germans. The Italian one is stylish.

The German one is austere.

The time comes to take the train to Cairo. The train station is just a few blocks from our hotel.

The journey takes about two and a half hours. Our car is air conditioned, but kind of grotty.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In the Italian war memorial, we come across the remains of a soldier with the same surname as Maria.

We fly from Muscat to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. It takes less than an hour.

See the three tall buildings behind the pinkish tower? Those are the Etihad Towers. Vin Diesel flew a car through all three. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

My iPhone needs a new battery. As usual, the Apple Store is a marvel of design.

Our first stop is the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, it features bunker-like temperature controlled exhibition spaces under a lacework dome with lots of places for people to hang out in a relaxed setting.

Nearby, another interesting building is going up. It might be the future Sheik Zayed National Museum.

Hey, they have Tim Hortons in the UAE. Who knew?

This is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Grand might be an understatement.

It’s a gargantuan edifice. (A big building, in plain English.) It’s connected to a giant underground shopping mall. This is actually a natural fit; two things that are plentiful here are mosques and shopping malls.

The columns are inlaid with semi-precious stones.

A woman takes a photo of her daughter, coaching her into this demure pose.

We take a bus from Abu Dhabi to Dubai.

On arrival, Maria has to test a fresh-squeezed orange juice machine. It’s cold and delicious.

The one thing we consider must-see here is the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. (For now.)

From the top, you get a great view of the city-sized Dubai Mall below.

As well as the rest of the Dubai skyline.

Also in the Dubai Mall is an enormous fish tank, complete with sharks, manta rays, and sawfish.

Another Dubai icon is the Palm Jumeirah, a palm-tree shaped artificial island.

From here you can see another Dubai landmark, the sailboat-inspired Burj Al Arab.

We visit the Gold Suq. Plenty of jewelry on display, but it’s more about the weight than the esthetic quality.

A new attraction in Dubai is the torus-shaped Museum of the Future.

It’s covered in Arabic script. (Quotes from the current Sheik that rules Dubai.) To be honest, the architecture is the best thing about it, despite the steep entrance fee..

The exhibitions about the future are not very convincing. (Personally, I can’t imagine women wearing hijabs a century from now any more than I can imagine women today wanting to wear corsets and bustles.)

On our last day in the UAE, we go to Sharjah, our third emirate. (There are seven.)

Sharjah is much less glitzy than Abu Dhabi and Dubai. More working-class, you could say. Its harbour is full of fishing boats and small freighters.

It resembles the midsized cities of Oman. Not much globally-recognized architecture here.

We’ve come specifically to visit the Museum of Islamic Civilization.

Its numerous artifacts are well-curated. We liked the special exhibition on Arabic calligraphy.

That evening, we board our flight for Alexandria, Egypt.

Sight or Insight of the Day

There is obviously a lot of money sloshing around in these Gulf states. It just seems to me that most of it is frittered away in frivolous vanity projects. Nobody here is committing billions of dollars to cure cancer, or end world hunger, or ensure universal childhood education.

I’ve always thought it a bit strange that during the migration crisis of 2015, the number of refugees taken in around here was, um, zero.

Here are people who share the same language. The same culture. The same religion. Yet notwithstanding a generous amount of financial aid, the number of their Arab brethren they were willing to physically take in was none. Nada. Zilch. Not one.

Considering that all of these countries depend on foreign workers – in the UAE, over 80% of residents are non-Emiratis, mostly South Asians – you’d think they would have been glad to import a few million immediately-assimilable souls.

Our last entry for Oman. From Al Hamra, we head to Jebel Shams, the highest mountain in Oman. On the way, we come across a local specialty: goat-hair carpets woven by local men.

We want to do the Balcony Walk – a hike along the ‘Grand Canyon of Oman’.

Jebel Shams means ‘sun mountain’.

On the road, we spot one of the ubiquitous blue trucks that deliver water to Omani households.

For most of the trek, you are only steps away from a long plunge to the bottom of the canyon.

At the end of the trail is an abandoned village.

The place is the haunt of wild goats. They are obviously used to hikers sharing their provisions.

When we descend the mountain, we explore yet another abandoned village: Wadi Ghul.

We think the simple explanation for the high number of abandoned villages in Oman is that people just found better places to live after the modernizations of the last half-century or so.

Our next stop is the ancient tombs of Al Ayn.

They’re supposed to be 5,000 years old. Even though they are a major historical artifact in Oman, they are extremely hard to track down.

The Rustaq Loop is our next destination. This is a trio of forts that people usually take in together. In our case, we find that two of them are closed for renovations. Only the Al-Hazm fort is open for visitors. It’s pretty impressive.

The fort was the home of the local powerful imam. This is the imam’s leisure room.

While walking around, we are followed by the imam’s cat. (So we call him.) He’s very friendly.

A mystery – in several regions of Oman, we pass walled areas named in English ‘old cemetery’. But inside, we see nothing but rocks. In Islam, most graves are very simple, even for eminent persons. Ostentatious grave markers are rare.

But I read somewhere – and for the life of me, I can’t find this source again – that many Omanis are followers of the Ibadi form of Islam. Some take this simplicity to a somewhat extreme degree. They inter the body and just place a rock in memory. And that’s it.

We can see that this makes sense, in a way. Almost all customs involving passed-on people are designed for the survivors, since the no-longer-living are beyond all that.

Our original plan was to visit the Omani exclave of Musendam. Because it’s detached from the main body of Oman, we have to take a ferry. The ferry itself is very modern and comfortable, but the booking arrangements are a challenge. Can’t book a ticket online. Can’t see the schedule online. Can’t pay online.

We wanted to take Lawrence with us, but by the time we acquire tickets, there is no space for a vehicle. We leave him behind for couple of days in the port of Shinas, where the ferry departs from.

Once the ferry is at sea, they open the observation decks. There are two areas: one for ‘women and families’, and one for men only (like the rest of the boat). This is the normal gender apartheid that prevails in this part of the world.

The main town in Musendam is Khasab. The next day, we take an all-day dhow cruise that includes fjord-viewing and snorkeling.

The dhow is relaxing. It’s a pleasant change to be transported around by someone else.

In some places, we’re accompanied by dolphins.

…and more dolphins.

One of our snorkeling spots is Telegraph Island.

The water is emerald green and abounds in fish.

Maria, as usual, is in her element.

A noteworthy cultural trait in Khasab: every night, scores of smugglers stream across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran in small, speedy boats loaded to the gunwales with sheep and goats. They return with contraband like refrigerators and microwaves.

We return to the mainland on the ferry to Shinas and drive back to Muscat.

Sight or Insight of the Day

After nearly a month in Oman, it’s time to depart. We spend the last few days in Muscat again, where we visit the extravagant Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

On our last day, we take a day trip to the nearby Dimaniyat Islands.

These islands have some of the best snorkeling we have seen since the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The absolute best part is the sea turtles! We see at least half a dozen, gracefully floating around and wafting to the surface just past our noses.

We’ve really enjoyed our time here. From a brief stopover a few years ago on our way to Iran, we thought Oman looked like an attractive place to visit. And so it proved.

With a heavy heart, we return Lawrence to the car rental office. We’ve travelled almost 5,000 kilometres together. He joins Uncle Joe, Shorty, and Cardashian on our list of faithful automotive companions for this trip.