Road Trip days 3-4 — The road liss traveled

I was happy to be off the sand and back on a real road. I stopped in the gas station to refill my tires, grap a cappuccino, and then back on the highway for some smooth sailing. I had googled some of the most popular Arabic artists and added a few albums to my phone. It was mostly pop music, because if I can’t understand the lyrics, I at least want it to be catchy. I must say, cruising through the desert in a new country, on perfect roads, mountains in the background, listening to some banging Arabic tunes is quite enjoyable! Too enjoyable, because I did end up getting a speeding ticket somewhere along the way! $52 + Enterprise payment fees. Pretty reasonable though.

More examples of what a lot of the driving looked like. Oman has fantastic scenery

First stop of the day would be an abandoned village, Harat al Yemen, supposedly one of the oldest settlements in Oman. There are lots of abandoned villages in Oman, but this one is particularly old, which is why it’s preserved, well not exactly preserved, but not demolished either. Supposedly it predates Islam, so before the 600’s AD. FWIW the Islamic Calendar starts in the year 622AD, that’s their year zero. As for abandoned villages there are also many others in various states around the country. This is because modernization happened so fast in Oman, and the government encouraged people to move closer to cities so they could provide everyone with electricity and water and healthcare, things you don’t get so easily out in the desert.

iphone says the sky is going to be really really blue

Yep, that’s what an abandoned house looks like

I was the only person in the abandoned village, which is a pretty eerie feeling! Some of the buildings had sketchy little stairwells so you could climb up and get a decent view of the whole place. Kinda neat. Next up was driving up towards the largest mountain in Oman, Jebel Akhdar, the town of Saiq specifically. To get to this area of Oman you need to go up a very steep mountain road, and there’s a checkpoint you have to go through that only allows 4x4’s or AWD. The road is pristine though, and I’m sure normal cars could make it up. So for this town, I was expecting something like a quaint, rustic mountain village, but it was more like a rich person enclave…

This photos sums up the place pretty well, very nice modern homes, but still lots of open space and dirt/gravel and goats freely roaming around.

Lots of very nice homes, higher end coffeeshops and restaurants. It kinda felt like the mountain version of Naples where richer Omanis have second homes, except they have them to escape the heat, not to flee to it. Omani summer does not sound pleasant whatsoever. Since it was technically ‘winter’ it wasn’t too crowded. But I’m pretty sure the AWD/4x4 rule is to keep the riffraff out. If you don’t have an SUV or a truck, you ain’t coming.

After checking into my guesthouse – I was wondering why it was so expensive, now I know, I had time to check out one more abandoned village. About 15 minutes out of town was another one, this village was in a more scenic location, built into the mountainside. So it was mildly interesting to pop in all the dilapidated structures, but once again, not really not much to do. I hit my daily quota for abandoned villages. There was a hiking trail I followed for half and hour, but it didn’t appear to lead to anywhere exciting as far as I could tell, and I wanted to get back in town to find a good place to photograph the sunset on the cliffs.

Okay I think you get the idea of what these places look like

And that’s exactly what I did. There are a few very nice resort hotels also perched on the cliffs, but also plenty of open space and rocky areas to scamper around on with great views. Locals like to bring to their portable chairs and tables and teapots and watch the sunset while sipping their tea. And blankets. As soon as the sun sets it gets cold very quickly up this high at this time of year. I took photos from a few different angles, but with these desert climates and no clouds in the sky it’s hard to take any overly dramatic photos. I also got invited for tea, but in Arabic countries I’m never sure if they’re just being polite, as it’s one of those polite gestures people sometimes say but don’t mean, or if they actually want me to join them. I declined, as I had more photos to take, but I appreciated the offer!

I don’t know what these plants are, but I like them

I kinda like this one. I was laying on my stomach and I still I couldn’t get low enough!

Someone’s tea setup. This one isn’t exactly very portable haha. How red it is scares me a little! And you can see one of the big fancy resorts in the background.

For dinner I found a more a local place that tourists seems to like, you pick out your food from a few different options and find a spot on the carpeted ground with pillows, and then the owner brings out a plastic sheet to put in front of you and your plates of food are put on that so you can’t spill on the floor. The traditional eating style I guess you’d call it. I sat next to a French couple who were on a similar roadtrip (basically every tourist is on a similar roadtrip) and we were both surprised by our unmet expectations of what this ‘mountain village’ would look like! And not in a particularly good way haha. Not exactly the vibe we were going for. And no shisha here either except for at an upscale lounge, and I’m not paying $40 to smoke shisha.

Can’t go wrong with chicken n rice. The sauce you pour on it is very tasty

The next morning I was up early as usual and made my way back over to the cliffs to watch the sunrise. Well I missed the actual sunrise, but caught the first light hitting the terraced villages further down in the canyon. There was also a very scenic layer of fog at the bottom of the valley. Then it was back on the road, I didn’t really feel like sticking around much longer, nothing was open yet and I wanted to make sure I had enough time for seeing some forts and wadi exploring, as today would be a longer day and a bit more off the beaten track.

the mosque on my street. Throw a stone and there’s a mosque

Once I got down I stopped in a coffee shop and planned out the day’s route. First stop would be the UNESCO heritage site, the Bahla Fort, originally built sometime in the 12-15th centuries in an important area for the frankincense trade, which Oman was famous for. It was renovated in the early 2010’s, although not “restored” as cement and stone were used to mostly cover up the original rocks and walls, which got quite a bit of criticism. Still, it’s a good looking place. Very few tourists were there! Although they give you very little information about the fort itself.

lovely interior spaces, as you can see it has a very polished look to it

Kind of makes you want to play interior designer with all that unused shelf space

The next stop was the Jabreen Castle, built in the 1600’s by the ruling dynasty at the time. It was originally built for the Sultan and his family, and then turned into a government building. They give you a bit of info about traditional family life, but not much info on the castle itself. I guess they want you to buy the tour. But it has some very well decorated and ornate rooms and courtyards and all that.

I’m trying to take more photos of myself…

Next up was yet another UNESCO heritage site, the Al Ayn beehive tombs, a necropolis from the 3rd century BC. I was feeling lazy and didn’t make the hike up to see these things, just photographed them from below. I wanted to make sure I had enough time hike the Wadi Damm pools, which apparently you need to hike quite a bit to get to. From this point onward the road turned into gravel and was a bit slower going. I got lost a bit trying to find the parking lot because there’s various gravel roads that don’t really show up on the map and certainly no signs. There were maybe two other cars in the parking lot. This isn’t a very touristy one!

It turns out that this wadi was mostly dry in the dry season, but it was still a very nice hike through the canyon, with a bit of rock hopping and scrambling involved to make feel a bit more adventurous, and there was still some water flowing. There were maybe two or three pools that were deep enough to swim in, so I wasn’t totally out of luck! And really I had the whole place to myself. I passed one person who was coming out, and that was the only person I saw the entire time in the whole canyon. So that was a nice way to spend a few hours in the afternoon!

About to take a dip, although not in this pool, it was stagnant and had bugs in it

After hiking back out I drove up the steep, bumpy, unpaved road to the Jebel Shams area, Jebel Shams being the tallest mountain in Oman. I was definitely happy to have the AWD SUV for this road! The upper plateau has a great view overlooking the largest canyon in Oman, with a surprisingly nice coffeeshop to boot! Although on the other side where the sun sets I couldn’t really find a good place to take a sunset so photo… hmmph

This is all we got. It’s a rocky scrubby wasteland

Driving down. This would have been a better shot…

Lots of people stay in one of the few somewhat expensive hotels up here, or camp out, but I don’t have camping gear and I didn’t feel like paying $100+/night. Plus it’s freezing at night and nothing to do. So I drove down an hour and stayed in the town of Al Hamra, which also has an old abandoned part of town, and from there I could enjoy my whole shisha + bookreading routine, and then I ate at a famous Yemeni restaurant, which was fantastic. The camel skewers were surprisingly good! I’d be back awake at 5:30am to drive back up and catch the sunrise at 6:45! Sleep is for the weak!