Musandam Peninsula hotels collection

Kumzar can be reached only by boat, and its people speak a language scarcely heard elsewhere, made of Persian and Arabic, with a few words left behind by Portuguese sailors. The limestone mountains of the Hajar sink into the sea in fjords, the khors, where dolphins run at the bows of the dhows. Halfway along Khor Ash Sham, an islet keeps the walls of a British telegraph station. Up in the mountains, the half-buried dry-stone houses known as bait al-qufl closed a low door and a wooden lock on the grain and the jars while the family was away for the summer.