Oman 4: Misfat's Spring and the Balcony Walk of Jebel Shams

   Before continuing where I left off, there have been a few things I have forgotten to mention:

-  The buffet dinner one night in Jebel Akhdar served an Egyptian dessert dish called Omali.  It was very similar to bread pudding.  I liked it.  Miles tasted it but scoffed at its consistency.

-  I took great care to order long sleeved shirts and long pants for both Miles and I, because reading up on Oman indicated that dress code was fairly strict.  Even though there would be more leeway with Miles, once you hit puberty, you are considered an adult for dress purposes here.  Other visitors don't seem to care in the slightest.  They wore short sleeves and shorts, which are kind of expected, but I also saw women in yoga shorts and other completely inappropriate and tone deaf dressing.

-  In the hospitality and service industries, there are every very few Omani workers.  It is almost all foreigners, from Africans to Indians, and even Chinese.  It has been a waste that I learned about fifteen Arabic phrases, because there seems to be noone to interact with that knows the language.

-  There is trash everywhere.  Trash has been on nearly every hike.  In streams, wedged into rocks, it has been inescapable.  Even when I pulled onto the side of the road and climbed down some rocks to a middle of nowhere spot to view the sunset in this blog entry, there was trash wedged in to the rocks and I had to maneuver myself so that the trash would not end up in the pictures.  I am assuming that this has a bit to do with just how much plastic is being used in Oman by the tourism industry.  Due to uncertainty when it comes to drinking Omani water, every hotel throws tons and tons of water bottles at you, from their breakfast, to dinner, to being left in your room.  With all of this plastic out there, you have disrespectful tourists just dumping them wherever they feel like it.

-  Oman has seemingly abandoned most of its towns and rebuilt elsewhere in newly built structures.  They just appear to have up and left them.  So, wherever you go, you have crumbling buildings and tons and tons of attempts to now renovate these decaying structures, or just building new.  Much of the renovations of older buildings, from what I can tell, are aimed at turning them into hotels, cafes, or museum experiences.  I tried to look up explanations for the state of Oman, but have not had much luck.  I know that they were extremely poor until they discovered oil in 1962, and then they rapidly expanded education and living standards.  Perhaps this explains the mad rush out of the old towns and the old ways.

-  Cats.  There are more stray cats here than I have ever seen in any other country, and they are extremely skinny and not well cared for.  I don't have a solution for it, but it is something that I definitely noticed.  Hell, last night during dinner, a cat came over to beg for food.

-  Just as in Morocco, at different times during the day, for a call to prayer.  This is mostly in the bigger cities, as there is little to none in the countryside.  At 5:00 AM, and as late as 8:00 PM, prayers are broadcast on loudspeakers.  I find this practice to be a bit odd.  Before technology, this obviously was not a thing.  It feels forced, overdone, and unnatural.  While researching this, I found an article about Saudi Arabia limiting the volume of these call to prayers, because it was becoming disruptive and could negatively effect the elderly and children in the area.

-  Jeremy has suggested that adding a hose into my bathrooms would actually be a fairly easy and reversible process, if needed for resale.

-The Omani people that I DO end up encountering have been incredibly friendly and welcoming.  They wave to you while walking on the road or in their cars.  They never seem agitated if you ask for help.  They also do not give off any irritation at the influx of tourists.  There has not been a single moment where I have felt uncomfortable or unsafe here.  Of course, this is coming from a white male, so my perception might be skewed.

  Returning to where my last blog post left off, once I was back in town, I passed this sign for a coffee shop.  I could not turn down such a bizarre of an entryway, so I climbed the steps.

  After multiple flights of stairs, I reached the cafe at the top, with a wonderful view.  I ordered a flat white and fresh orange juice.  It had been so long since I had had freshly squeezed orange juice, that the taste surprised me.

The steps leading down to the other side of the cafe.

While walking to the hotel on the first day, we passed this shop, which was open at the time.  it was never reopened.  What  found most amusing was the sign pointing to virtual reality.  Because, when you think of virtual reality, you definitely think of abandoned villages in the hilltops of Oman.

  Once I was nearly back to the hotel, I saw the Omani flag painted on the wall, indicating a trail.  I had been hoping to find the trail to the Spring of Misfat's Falaj system, so I decided to see if this led there.  

  The route was an easy walk east and north of the village, along the mountain's side.  The water had little fish swimming in it.  Then, it just ended at a rock face, where the water kept going.  It was way too tight of a space to enter.  I didn't take a picture of it because it was so unspectacular.  There were steps next to the waterway, with nothing on either side of it.  After looking around for an alternative path, I decided to walk up the few steps and then down the other side.  It simply deposited me in a dead end surrounded by boulders.

    The new town above Misfat blocks the sunset view, so I drove five minutes out of town.  I found a place to pull over and walked down to some rocks to watch the sunset.

  The next day we drove an hour and a half to Jebel Shams.  We had to drive on a dirt mountainous road for about fifteen minutes before it became paved again at the top.  They allowed us to have an early check in at our hotel, and then left shortly for the Balcony Walk.  The Walk itself was another 10 minute drive away, but it only took that long because it was mostly an extremely bumpy desert road.  Strangely, getting up this mountain did not require four wheel drive, but it definitely made more use of it than Akhdar.

  We were extremely high up, on a well made path, that mostly wasn't completely sheer on one side, though at times it was.  Miles was hesitant first but we eventually got into a rhythm.  Miles wanted to lead and take it slow, so I did what made him comfortable.  There was one time when he freaked out about an insect and made sudden movements and I had to grab him and admonish him that now was not the time to react like that.  On the way back, he fell forward once.  Otherwise, the trip was without incident.

  There were a few spots on the hike where it opened up into a large walkable cliffside.  We ended up making it eighty to eighty five percent of the way through the whole hike.  While not physically strenuous, it took a mental toll on us to deal with how high up e were and how stark the drops along the walk were.  We could see the final destination in the distance, which was a tiny abandoned village on the side of the cliff(which I point out in one of the photos below).  We had seen a majority of the views, and we accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, so we headed back. 

A goat greeted us at the entrance to our hotel.

If you squint, you can see Miles there.

This is a heavily cropped picture to show the abandoned village that we didn't reach.  This village is within the previous picture, which shows the final part of the path that we didn't venture onto.

A goat that we encountered on our return trip, back near the beginning.

Oman 3: Hiking Jabal Akhdar and the mud village of Misfat Al Abriyeen

  That night, I stayed by the hotels balcony, hoping for a nice sunset.  My photos didn't end up so well, so I am posting this cell phone picture instead.

  The next day we walked a short distance from our hotel to begin a hike connected three villages, Alaqr, Al Ain, and Alshuraijah.  There were only a handful of impressive views, and the villages were nothing new to us by this point.  We did catch a beautiful cat sitting by a pond, however.

We reached the far end of the trail, where it unceremoniously ended in front of a construction site.  We somehow began down the wrong path, but realized that we were no longer seeing the Omani flag symbol, so had to retrace our way to the final village and begin our journey home again.   On the way back, I decided to keep an eye out for insects.  Miles was an excellent spotter of insects, and also caught sight of a lizard from a distance, allowing me to slowly approach.

  That night I was so busy writing the previous blog that I forgot to go out for the sunset again.  Whoops!

  The next day, we first drove to the abandoned old town of Al Hamra, on the way to our final desination of Misfat Al Abriyeen.  This old town was left behind, to crumble.  Some Omani decided to restore a handful of buildings and create a culture experience within.  I chose to have us visit one of these, Bait Al Safah.

  A large tour group arrived just before us, so we went along with them.  After a short description of the house, we were brought into a large room where one woman demonstrated how the people of Oman used to grind coffee.  The other showed us the process of creating Omani bread, and then invited a woman up to try her hand at it.  I would not have wanted to eat the bread that this volunteer had made.

  We were all given samples of the bread just made.  Miles commented that he liked it and would have had more.  It was explained to us beforehand that photography of the women were allowed.  Normally, I would have had to ask permission.

  We were led upstairs, to a room where the guide gave some background on the traditional clothes of men and women.  I asked if they always chose to go to a tailor rather than buying them premade.  He said that it can go either way, and sometimes shops will have different sizes, but that being tailored was preferred.  

The final room had us sampling Omani coffee, while sitting with the hosts.  Before the bulk of the group arrived, I asked, in Arabic, if I may take a picture of them.  They happily obliged.

  The coffee was very aromatic.  A fragrant smell, which is exactly how it tasted.  It is served in a tiny cup, without sugar or milk options.  Afterwards, we wandered around the streets some more, on the way back to our car.

  Misfat Al Abriyeen was just ten minutes up the hill from Al Hamra.  We parked in the small car park, just before the village.  The village is traversed entirely on foot.  Our hotel was near the bottom of the vlilage, so we walked down many steps with our luggage.  We were warned about the distance, so we condensed our luggage some in preparation.

  We passed a cafe that served ice cream, but when we returned, it was closed.  We chose to go to Rogan's Cafe, a multi storied terrace cafe.  I ordered a crepe, not knowing what was inside, Omani coffee, and Miles ordered waffles.  What we received was unexpected, but delicious.

  The next day, after breakfast, Miles complained of being tired, wanting to sleep, and not wanting to hike around town with me.  I told him that he could take the day off, and ventured out on my own.  I climbed upward, through the village, with my eye set on making my up as close as I could to Rogan Castle.  Just now, as I am writing this, I see the connection between the tower name and the cafe.  I hadn't noticed this earlier. 

  Steps brought me to the top of town, and to the roof of the highest building.  From there were further rock steps that led me upward.  It was fairly easy to navigate upward, until I reached a spot around the same height as the tower.  There was no way to reach it though, as there were huge gaps downwards all around the tower.  I had anticipated this, as the reviews online had suggested as such.  There were magnificent views, and some nearby flowers caught my eyes.

  As I began my descent toward town, I spotted some goats, so I decided to go in their direction.

  I found what I assume was a family of goats, in a slightly different direction than I had come up.  No goats that I have seen in Oman are tagged, so I am unsure which are owned by others and which, if any, are free.  As I watched the goats, a young man in Omani dress and sandals, nonchalantly climbed up near the goats.  

This insect had a strange mouth.