Although our flight to Muscat had left Riyadh at 3:40 a.m., we foolishly thought we could drive south to Sharqiya Sands, reputed to be a fantastic desert area. Unfortunately, Tim was just too tired to make the drive, which had looked to be a couple of hours but we subsequently concluded would have taken all day there and back. We did drive through some beautiful mountain scenery before reluctantly returning to Muscat. This was a town along the way -- not particularly beautiful, but I liked the combination of palms, sand, buildings, mountains and sea, pretty much everything in Oman.

Some of the mountain scenery posted earlier: