Saturday, February 21st.
This morning we had a terrific new local guide named Masoud. As we drove to the Grand Mosque here in Muscat he gave us a lot of information: the Sultan wanted a beautiful large mosque built that non Muslims could visit to see what Muslims do. The project was started in 1993 and completed in 2001. The marble was brought from India, cut and polished in Oman, the Teakwood was brought from Myanmar. The result is another stunning, beautiful, impressive, immense mosque. 750 women can pray here and 7000 men. Why the difference in numbers? Because men are expected to pray in a mosque but women are encouraged to pray at home because of the responsibilities of child and home care. But they are welcome to visit ‘God in his house’ whenever they please. The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque has five minarets representing the five pillars of Islam. The men’s hall carpet weighs 21 tons and has 1.7 billion knots created by 60 Iranian women. There are 35 Swarovski chandeliers, the largest of which weighs 8 tons. The dome weighs 525 tons and required some ingenuity as the Sultan wanted a minimum of support pillars to impede the view of the faithful. The result was four very sturdy ones. There are 6 million pieces of mosaic tiles.
After we visited the mosque we began our drive southwest to Sur. On the way Moussad told us about the Islamic calendar which began when the Prophet Mohammed was chased out of Mecca by non believers and retreated to Medina. The current year according to that calendar is 1447. He also told us there is still capital punishment for murder, high treason and drug trafficking. But interestingly there is also a law with potentially harsh penalties: you cannot argue about religion, politics or race, but you can discuss them (I wonder where the fine line is), the punishment is 10 years in prison and loss of passport.
We stopped at Hawijat Najm (Sink Hole) Park where we saw some people swimming in a large hole in the ground that is caused by erosion of the rock beneath. Then we continued and stopped at a wadi, which is an area of water that has run down out of the mountains into a valley. There was a nice walk there following the palm tree lined water course. After that we continued to a pebbly rock beach for a stretch of our legs. Finally we arrived at our latest hotel, a Best Western in Sur. They had a pool, so as soon as we checked in Marsha, Andy and I made for it to cool off after a hot day.
We went to a restaurant for dinner where we had preordered a meal and dessert of our choice. I had a seafood tagine which was quite good. After that George announced that none of the desserts we had ordered were available so he’d make it up tomorrow. So we headed back to the hotel for the evening.
