Nizwa

For the boys’ mid term break, we stayed close to Muscat and visited Nizwa.  The trip had many problems, but it was still fantastic.  I want to go back and do some other activities that we couldn’t do (because we popped a tire and came home on a spare).

Nizwa was once a capital of Oman, and it is situated in the desert about 1.5 hours from Muscat.  It sits along a dry river bed.  This feels extremely sad.  Google Maps will still show the river (wadi) in blue, but it is bone dry.

Our first day in town, we got a quick lunch in Nizwa, did some Google searches, then headed to Manah to check out the fort and old village around al Fiqain.  Wow!  The fort was closed while we were there, but the village is always open.  This was a great stop and a highlight for all of us.  J even told us that he loves history and wanted to go to more places to learn about history. 

The flat on the fort through the ruins.

My favorite:  a door still on the second floor.  This one still had a roof.

Al Fiqain is an abandoned village that is around 400 years old.  It’s not as old as I expected, but when the buildings are made of mud, palm branches, and some rocks, it’s understandable that it won’t last overly long in harsh environments.  The roofs have all collapsed, and for that reason, we gave the boys the rule of “no climbing the stairs.”  Some of the stairs still look like stairs, but others look like ramps or slides at this point.  It was hard to convince the boys not to climb.  We repeated the above rule frequently because they were always hopeful one would look safe enough for us to allow them to climb.  It didn’t work.  There are stairs which indicated that the buildings had second floors.  The walls of some of the second floors had deteriorated, but others were still in good condition.  I loved one spot where the door is still standing on the second floor.  The honest down side is that there is trash.  Some areas of the village have more than others.  It appears that there are squatters from time to time (or year round?).  If someone or a branch of the government took the time to clean it up and maybe provide some informational fliers about what you’re seeing, it would be greatly improved.

We then headed to our hotel, or rather camp, Noor Majan Camp.  This is near Manah and south of Nizwa.  Some aspects of the camp ground were fairly basic, but the nightly price we paid for a two room cabin seemed reasonable.  The beds were hard as rocks.  The bathroom was a shower/bathroom (wish I had taken a picture).  But the A/C worked well, we had a little fridge for food, and two rooms.  The boys’ room was super cute with an eating table and 3 “twin” size beds.  We also had TVs with at least 2 English channels that were constantly playing movies.  There is a restaurant on site, but it is currently closed.  They would bring in breakfast in the morning, and it was plentiful!  It was so much food that we were always putting extras into our fridge and supplementing lunch with it.  Without a restaurant, we went into Nizwa for sandwich fixings and chips so we could pack lunches.  We would also get dinner in Nizwa before heading back to the camp.

After dropping off our stuff at the camp, we headed out to the ruins of Tanuf.  These ruins are on the north end of Nizwa.  The ruins are nearly 70 years old.  It was bombed by the British to quell an Imamate rebellion.  These buildings seemed better built than the Al Fiqain ruins, but in equally poor condition.  These ruins just had more help to get to their ruined state.  The ruins sit on the edge of a wadi that actually had water!  We watched jeeps, motorcycles, and a few sedans cross the wadi to get to the area on the other side.  There seemed to be lots of locals that were enjoying their afternoon here.  Tanuf was not as exciting or interesting as Al Fiqain, but it was still enjoyable.  You can see their falaj, and the wadi was nice and cool to dip our hands in.

The guys checking out the water.

Tanuf ruins

One tall standing tower in the ruins.

We swung by the Daris Falaj before calling it a night.  You can see it at a park in Nizwa.  Yes, it isn’t much to see, but the park it sits in is very beautiful and well planned.  For those that are confused by my terms, a falaj is the old irrigation system that was used in Oman.  The Nizwa Fort had some very useful information about the falaj system including a video that explained how it was regulated.  Farmers were divided into areas and each area would have 30 minute windows to draw their water for the day.  They would use oxen to pull up sacks from the water at well-like areas.  Back to the Daris Falaj.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site and nearly 2000m long.  Basically, at the park, it looks like a small canal that you can look down in.  You can access it from stairs, and we did see people swimming in it when we went back other days.  We even had a picnic in the park one day.  The boys really loved this park, especially these really tall, metal slides.

Daris Falaj

Day two was a hiking day.  Our plan was to hike the W6a from Wadi Ghul up to Al Khitaym.  It didn’t happen.  We couldn’t find the trail head.  The main hike is from Al Khitaym and along the An Nakhur Gorge, or Oman's Grand Canyon.  We couldn’t do this hike because we don’t have a 4wd vehicle.  Hiking from the bottom would require a short hike from the main road to the start of the path.  We parked at the Wadi Ghul dam (note:  Wadi Ghul is dry.  It is apparently a 1000 year flood plain.  The dam is in place just in case.)  We walked toward the mountains, couldn’t find the trail, then walked west until we found a trail.  After walking up this trail a ways, it seemed to just end.  We also didn’t appear to be along the edge of a gorge, but we felt the need to hike something.  So we hiked up, taking breaks where we could find a tree to use for shade, to a decent stopping point with good views.  One kid threw up thanks to drinking too much water too quickly.  We then hiked down a different route that appeared flatter and easier.  It was flat for a very short period, then the trail stopped.  We ended up heading down some very steep parts of the mountain that led us to cliffs.  Stephen would go ahead of us, make sure we could get down the next section then bring us along.  I’ll admit that I slipped at one point, ripped my Halloween pants (R.I.P. my Halloween pants), then had a panic attack when Stephen came back for us.  I just wanted to go back up because our path just seemed to get worse and worse.  That panic attack stopped the complaints from J and helped us to all band together to get down.  Since I’m writing this, you know that we did get down the mountain.  J managed with 7 boo-boos as he proudly told me.

Our drive to our hike through some short mountains.

As high up as we got on the mountain.  RIP halloween pants

Two of my boys checking out the view while one enjoys the shade.

Panorama of the mountains and Wadi Ghul.

Our path let us off in a village that is raised up from Wadi Ghul.  We walked along the town road to get down to a path down to the wadi and back to the main road.  This little town didn't appear to be exposed to westerners much.  We had kids stare at us, run to get brothers and sisters to see us, and a little toddler come out to touch my hand.  So cute!

After getting back to camp and doing some Google searches, we found the path was just farther west of where we were.  The village we ended in is one village east of the village on the map.  Basically, that bottom of the trail is in the Al Jirayfat area.  We should have parked on the road south of Valley Necrosis and hiked in toward Al Hajir.  Looking at the Google satellite view, it is hard to see the W6a trail on Google.  You can see the W6 trail better which does indicate that it is probably more traveled.

We made it back to our car to cool off and drive back to Nizwa.  Unfortunately, we barely left the paved road and popped a tire.  At 2:30 on a Thursday, many businesses here will be closed.  We couldn’t find an open tire shop, so we put on our spare.  Then we headed to Nizwa where we found tire shops open.  The first one tried to patch the tire, but it didn’t work.  We stopped at every tire store we could find, but nobody had our tire in stock.  Time to change plans for the week.

Friday morning, we headed into Nizwa to see the souq and fort.  Their souq is very old and known for silver and pottery.  We didn’t buy either.  I did buy a kilogram of yummy dates.  The souq has a goat and cattle market on Friday mornings, but we didn’t get there early enough (it starts at 7:30am).  We saw one goat tied up at the market, two camels in a truck in the parking lot, and cattle in trucks leaving the souq.  I didn’t feel like we particularly missed anything by not going to the goat market, but maybe I’m wrong.  Exploring the souq is fun anyways.  And as we wound our way through, we ended up at the Nizwa Fort.  We thought we would have to go after lunch, but the souq took less time than expected (probably only 30-60 minutes).

Check out all the dates!!!

Pottery for sale in the souq

Lanterns for sale in the souq

The Nizwa Fort currently costs 5 OR per adult and 3 OR per child over 6.  It was reconstructed in the 70s, I believe.  It is a castle and military fort.  The castle portion has many rooms that have been labeled to tell you their use.  My favorite was either the shepherd’s room or the date storage.  The fort portion has the best views from the top and many unique displays inside of Omani culture and history.  A downside to this section was the lack of English.  Many items were labeled only in Arabic.

From the inside of the Nizwa Fort.

Being goofy in the fort

After the fort, we had a picnic lunch in the park then chilled at the camp for the afternoon.  Saturday we headed home after our large breakfast so that we could find a replacement tire.  We did find a tire, so at least that was solved.  For all the ups and downs and cancelled plans, I can’t wait to go back and explore the area some more.