On to the next part of our adventures in Oman (we've been in Muscat and the mountains so far), we head into the desert/sand dunes. As we were driving out of Nizwa and the Hajar Mountains, it was quite odd. It seemed one minute the landscape was mountainous and then suddenly we were in the middle of sand dunes.
We were staying at a desert camp and we had no idea what to expect. I think I was picturing safari-like tents and Richard was hoping there was decent air conditioning. The camp had hard structures with rooms, private bathroom and, of course, air conditioning.
Mid-afternoon, Richard and I wandered outside the camp to check out the landscape and nearby camels.
Richard being schooled on how to drink water.
Hope I don't step on this barefoot!
After exploring in the heat, a nap was necessary to recover....it was hot! Later in the afternoon some fruit, coffee, and dates were served in a main tent. A light afternoon snack before heading out for some dune bashing.
As the sun began to go down in the sky, we began to see why the Wahiba Sands are renowned for its gold hued sand dunes.
After driving around and bashing some dunes (gunning it going up and sliding down them...in a SUV!!). Nasser (our driver/guide) took us to the top of a ridge to watch the sun go down....which in the meantime the light really emphasized the ripples in the sand caused by the movement of sand from the wind.
So beautiful! Of course we took some family photos.
Clarissa and Nasser raced up and down the dunes.
Easier going down than up the dune...lol.
Of course we were not alone at our lookout point...lots of Landcruisers....
Nasser took a great video of Clarissa throwing up sand. It's quite neat as the sand was so fine and lightweight it would just float in the air as the wind blew it.
Richard was happy to see the sun setting...lol.
All the other Landcruisers left....
In relation to us, the dunes were so huge and went on for kilometers (or miles)...definitely felt small!
Clarissa took a photo of Richard, myself, Mason and Nasser from the bottom of a dune.
It was a beautiful sunset.
That night we tried our hand at star photography again. While you can't make out the milky way in the photo, it's a vast improvement of our attempts in Fiji!
The next morning as we headed out of the desert we interrupted some camels eating breakfast....
Lol...I could not pick a favorite photo....the baby is so cute but the adults with leaves chewing was funny too. A little further down the 'sand road', we happened upon a family with a momma and baby camel in a pen. Nasser asked a boy with the family if we could go in the pen and see them up close.
Do you know what a camel sounds like? We do!
We also stopped at local nomadic Omani tent, they had some woven items for sale
and quite possibly the coolest thing we saw....a real scorpion (and a small snake in a different bottle). It's not the best picture, but you can see the dark pincers to the right at the top of the sand.
It was here we got our last glances of the golden/almost rose gold colored dunes! The sand dunes were Richard's favorite part of the trip.
After departing the Wahiba Sands, we headed to one of the biggest and most beautiful wadis in Oman - Wadi Bani Khalid. What is a wadi? A wadi is an Arabic term referring to a valley or canyon. In a lot of countries with wadis, they are dry unless it is a rainy season. In Oman, these canyons tend to be spring fed and hold water year round in pools surrounded by tall canyon walls. We would describe a wadi as breathtaking oasis in the middle of the desert.
The kids may have gotten annoyed with me stopping to take photos....but it was so different than what we had been seeing.
There are some villages around the wadis and they let their goats roam around freely.
At the main pool in the wadi, there were tons of families having picnics and swimming.
There was a bridge crossing over the wadi (we may have watched some kids jumping off the bridge as well).
Behind the wadi is Muqal cave. The sign said it was another 10 minute or so walk. We didn't go as someone wanted to go swimming.
Getting used to the cool water. Clarissa said there were some of the toe nibbling fish in the water here a well.
Pictures don't do the wadi justice.....needless to say I tried to capture its beauty.
Good words to live by!
You can see the green of the wadi with the barren mountain in the distance.
After visiting the Wadi Bani Khalid we stopped for some lunch at a little cafe in the town closest to the wadi. Then we headed for the beach! The beach will wrap up our adventures in Oman...so stayed tuned!
As I mentioned in the Muscat post, we decided to use Lifetime Tours to see Oman. When looking at costs and deciding on an itinerary, it wasn't much more to go with a company. That also did away with the need for us to find lodging, places for meals, and worrying about driving in the mountains/sand dunes. We did the tour 'Farah' which was a sampling of the different areas of Oman. Once picked up, we headed to our first stop - the Nakhl Fortress.
I think one of the greatest things about having a tour guide....we had someone available to take pictures of all of us together.....so Richard and I finally both end up in the same pictures! Nakhl Fortress is about 350 years old and was built into the side of a mountain overlooking/protecting a village full of date plantations.
Nasser (our tour guide) told us about all kinds of adaptations built into the fort for protection/defense. I think the purpose of these smaller doors were the difficulty to get through wearing armor and carrying weapons.
At the top of the doorway was a small gap. This gap was used to pour hot date oil into. The oil would scald/burn the intruders.
All the date palms growing in pretty little rows.
The ancient village of Nakhal, Oman.
The mountains behind the fortress.
Enjoying the views atop the fortress (some was thirsty and didn't want her photo taken).
The fortress has hidden escape routes and secret passages. We didn't crawl through any of those. We did check out the different rooms showcasing what furniture, toys, etc of the time would look like.
Some of the carved woodwork was so beautiful and intricate you almost forgot about the likely bloodshed that occurred over the years during invasions.
There were many sections you could see how the builders use the natural rocks and just continued building upon them.
Nasser is a photographer as well as a tour guide. He was kind enough to send us some of the great shots he took. Here is one of them!
After leaving the fortress, we drove just a few minutes to a mountain stream in Nakhal.
What mountain stream would be complete without a spring fed waterfall?!?!
The waterfall was cropped a bit oddly as two men were relaxing in a small pool above the fall. There were a number of different-to-us species of dragonflies.
The main highlight of this little stream was the toe nibbling fish (ie the ones you pay $$$ to have nibble your toes during pedicures at fancy spas....here - free to any toes stuck in the water!).
So naturally, most of us partook! It is quite possible that it tickles a good bit as well.
We saw a colorful butterfly...sadly it flew away before I got a better shot of it.
In addition to pedicures, some of the locals would use the spring water to fill up bottles for home use (obviously filled at the source).
As we left Nakhl fortress, we began to head into the Hajar Mountains. Richard and I were both thankful not to be driving as the mountain road was quite curvy (with many one-lane sections). We probably would have avoided the mountain road for the bigger highways and missed out on the views of the canyons. As we went through one village, we happened upon one family's camel. So we had to stop and feed it some leaves from the nearby trees.
It was quite the photogenic camel!
Being the science dork I am, I was quite interested in the formation of the Hajar Mountains. It appeared the mountains were formed by the collision of tectonic plates as there were layers of sedimentation but the interesting part was the angles seen in these layers...almost diagonal. The googles tell me the mountains are formed where the Arabian Plate collides with the Eurasian Plate.
Amongst the tall mountains were some deep valleys!
In the middle of the mountains, there is a small farming village. Nasser said this is where the best garlic in the country comes from!
The small village overlooked the farming terraces, sadly I do not recall the name.
When we got to the top of the mountains, we stopped at a lookout point. Richard and I got out for a some pictures/stretch our legs.
The temperature was a good 10 degrees cooler and a bit breezy! Clarissa opted to stay in the car!
That small white line winding around the mountains is the road we had driven in on!
The mountains/landscape reminded us a bit of Southwest US/California mountains.
We had lunch at little cafe in a small mountain village. The kids were both still feeling a bit queasy from the mountain drive. So we opted to skip the more curvy roads trip to a wadi and went to an old ancient village built into terraces in the mountain side (I think it might be the village of Ash Shirayjah).
There were narrow pathways between buildings. The hanging pottery holds water which by swinging in the air keeps it cooler.
Lots of beautiful decorated doors into homes. We happened upon someone's peacock walking around.
The village remind of us Georgia with its old rocky homes and Fiji with the bananas, papayas and palm dates growing everywhere!
There were, of course, protection walls/fortress look outs.
Quite possible the most interesting thing were the rock formations along the ridge of the mountain. These were used in ancient times for celestial timing for crop watering. When a certain star lined up with the rock it was your farm's turn to divert the spring water flow to water your crops. When the star lined up with the next marker it was someone else's turn to water their crops.
We stopped at the village hotel for some coffee and dates.
I loved the date holding covered bowl!
On our way out, we happened upon two villagers using their donkeys to move things around/up the hill.
We walked out a different route than we had come in. A lot more date palms as well as a cool lizard!
The ancient village being overlooked by a modern day town.
We then headed on for the last of the drive to Nizwa in the Hajar Mountains. After the long hot hike through the village, someone started snoring on the drive...lol. We may of had a little fun at his expense!
Once in Nizwa, Clarissa tested the pool (I stuck my toes in and that was about it....the water was cold!). At dusk, we saw a goat keeper herding his goats home.
We then saw a colorful sun setting into the mountains.
The next morning, we wandered around the Nizwa Souq and Nizwa Fortress. Our first stop in the souq was a shop specializing in dates....every type you could imagine.
And what trip to a date shop is complete without some coffee and dates for the sampling?!?!
Mason, Nasser, and Richard.
We headed back outside. There were some gentlemen sitting around having some coffee and watermelon. Richard and Nasser joined them. I always feel uncomfortable photographing people, but Nasser had asked and encouraged me to....so I did.
The coolest thing they had in the vegetable souq was the bundled garlic bulbs. Omani garlic is very flavorful and delicious, yet quite expensive.
Clarissa took the little camera and took a ton of photos. Here are some of my favorites (she did great at getting down at different levels).
The Nizwa area is where most of Oman's pottery comes from. So naturally the souq had a lot of the the clay pots used for holding water, as well as decorative pots used with lights or as wall sconces.
We were quite tempted to get some as it was so beautiful but the transporting it back part deterred us.
There were also some colorful lanterns for candles.
The fortress is located past the souq and we finally made our way there.
Near the main entrance was a wall covered in solider doodles from days gone by.
The fortress had all the usual security features...gaps for hot oil pouring, spots to dump water to put our intruder fires on wooden doors, gaping pits going up the stairs (covered with boards that could be moved once breached and causing them fall down into the deep pits), height for spotting and firing cannons from intruders coming from outside the fortress.
Lots of stairs, we couldn't imagine running up them with armor and weapons. There was also a lot of rooms within the citadel and castle in the fortress - the map labels 64 rooms!
There was beautiful views of Nizwa. Nizwa was the capital of Oman multiple times from the mid 8th to mid 12th centuries, so the protection of the city was important.
Platform with ports for cannons (23 cannons could be shot from a 360° radius!). Above the platform was another platform for sentry to walk and fire shots hidden in the shadows.
The only thing we found along the platform was a bird!
Part of the fortress was a museum. There were some really old relics! If you can read the sign...these are everyday items from the Stone Age (7000-1000BC)!
In a courtyard of the fortress there were a couple Omani women preparing a traditional bread called khubz ragag. It is very thin and she topped Richard's with honey before folding it and Nasser had an egg cracked and cooked in it before folding his up.
The Nizwa fortress was really beautiful and massive. Between walking around the fortress and on the car rides, Nasser gave us a lot of information about Oman. We found out about the major invasions from Portugal and Persia and how the empire once spanned across modern day UAE, part of Yemen, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique!! Check out the map here!
After visiting Nizwa we headed through more mountains to the desert....so we have come to the conclusion of this part of our trip....stayed tuned for the next post on our adventures in the desert of Oman.
