February 18, 2011 from Mirbat till the track ends along the sea coast

 First we headed to Al Hisn souk to see what had changed there. On a Friday morning the place was not exactly jumping but the Dhofari ladies were still selling the frankincense. I bought a bag of the higher quality white for 5omr for 1/2 kilo and then just a few pieces of the highest quality which is greenish in color and when you break the lumps you can still see the soft stringy resin inside. The fragrance was wonderful and so was the price basically 12 omr for 1/2 kilo. Both frankincense and myrhh are used medicinally. You would put a few pieces of the resin in water and stir it up and then drink it. I also bought the woven palm frond "fan". We picked up 2 camel sticks for 1 omr each as we use these for picking things up when we shell.

Beautiful rock formations

With our goal to see some of Oman's coast that we have not seen, we headed east along the coast. We drove through Taqa to see some of the older Dhofari houses. We then stopped at the Marriott to check in for the next 2 nights. We then drove another 60 km to Sadah which is a small fishing village that was also a trading port for the trade of frankincense. We arrived at prayer time so there was no hope of lunch there. The drive had taken us inland on a good paved road that had been built to take advantage of the small wadi ridges. From Sadah the road goes along the sea. We stopped at Hadbin for a take out chicken and continued driving east to Hasek and a little beyond until the track petered out in a precipitous coast. We looked for signs of the ancient trading port city but did not sight it. There is now a ferry that goes from Hasek to the Halaniyat islands. We had been to the islands with the kids on a SOAF flight organized by Don for us to check out the sea life.

Engraved headstones

On the way back we stopped at a ruined Islamic villiage with a lovely bay and water source from the wadi behind it. In exploring the area we saw a graveyard with head stones with Arabic script. It is not common in Islam to have engraved headstones, so we were very surprized.

We made a couple of stops to check out the shells on the beaches. We actually saw very few shells on the shoreline on these stops. We arrived back at the resort by 7pm, showered and did laundry in the bath tub. We have packed light like on the Camino but if you look in the car it is full with foam mattresses, cooler, snorkling/shelling gear, navigation stuff and electronics of cameras and lap top, cell phones and BB.
Mirbat is 6 km from here and only has very local restaurants so once at the Marriott you need to have your dinner here.

The coast road between Sadah and Hasik