The Last Breath of Khareef

The mist is thinning. The valleys that only weeks ago echoed with families picnicking under dripping trees now stand quieter, their grass still soft but losing its magic sheen. Dhofar feels different now — as if the land itself is exhaling after holding its breath through the long, misty spell of Khareef.

For many, the green season ends the moment schools reopen. Cars line up outside gates, children carry their new books, and routines reclaim their place in daily life. The same families who camped on mountainsides now gather at dining tables, planning homework schedules instead of weekend drives to wadi Darbat or Ittin.

Businesses, too, shift gears. Stalls that sold corn, fresh coconuts, and steaming chai to visitors until midnight close earlier now. Cafés and restaurants, once crowded with tourists, return to serving mostly locals. There’s a kind of pause in the city — a silence that feels both empty and comforting.

Yet Khareef never really leaves. It lingers in the damp smell of the soil, in the sandals still drying at doorsteps, and in the photographs that fill our phones. It remains in the memory of laughter carried by the fog, of mountains disappearing into clouds, of the sound of waves crashing against a shore that always feels alive in this season.

For us in Dhofar, Khareef is not only a spectacle for visitors. It is a rhythm we grow up with, a chapter that shapes the year. When it closes, we do not mourn — we store it away like a well-loved story, waiting to be told again when the winds return.

And so, as we step back into routine, there’s a quiet promise in the air: that the mist will roll back, the mountains will wear green once more, and the cycle will continue. Until then, Dhofar carries on, holding within it the echo of a magical season that always feels too short.