We wanted a tour of Jebel Akhdar, and were fortunate enough to get the services of Ali from Alismaili Travel (Ali also has his own guest houses in Nizwa - The Omani Guest House). Ali spoke good English and was a great source of knowledge about local culture, history, and the locations we visited. He had a couple of stops which highlighted the beautiful views of the Jebel Akhdar area and even provided us with Omani coffee and date sweets. My husband enjoyed the walk down into the abandoned city, while I enjoyed the view from the top - beautiful scenery, birds, and peaceful feelings. We then decided to leave the mountains and continue on into the desert where Ali found a couple of camel herders who were thrilled to extoll how wonderful their camels were and how they take young camels and get them ready for racing. Some of the camels were actually friendly and wanted to be petted! It was a fun end to our day’s tour.
We did not ask to go to any shops, nor did Ali push us in that direction at all, but really seemed desirous of making sure we saw everything that we wanted. It was an enjoyable afternoon, and Ali exceeded our expectations as a tour guide for the day.