Falaj to Heaven

We were joined today by Adeline for the first time in our adventures. She had been working everyday up until now, but with it being a weekend, she was free to join us, which was quite nice, since we had very little time with her otherwise.

We made an early start in an attempt to reach Nizwa in time for the goat market, which is held every Friday morning.

Alas we were too late for the proper market but we saw the last of the animals on their way to their new homes and were still able to wander amongst the other food, veg and craft parts within the souq. One part of the souq which stands out, partly due to smell but also because of the immensity of the things on sale, is the fish market.

It was a quaint place filled with back passageways and uniquely attired individuals.

Everywhere you turned you saw something new and different...

After Nizwa we headed up onto Jabel Akdhar, which is the mountain of green. We were too late in the year to see it fully green, though it was easy to see how the plateau could go green in the early summertime. We lunched at Diana Point, so named for Princess Diana, who visited that spot via helicopter years back. It is a nice place with good views over the plateau and down into the valleys below.

Our amazing, gracious, indefatiguable, generous, ever smiling, goofy, wonderful, exquisite, pregnant (well only one), giving, adventure seeking, distance driving, fantastically, stupendously phenomenal hosts, Adeline and Thierry, who we cannot thank enough!!

From there we headed to Wadi bani Habib and explored the abandoned village there. Much of it had been destroyed, though there were plenty of houses standing with a wall or two.

We wandered up and then down along the hillside looking for the mosque, which was the last building we came to and was pretty much the only one undamaged. In fact, a Quran and prayer mats remained and it looked as if the local villagers still used it for some occasions.

We drove back to one of those villages and walked down along the falaj that overlooked the terraced plantations stretching down the hillside between two villages. At first the falaj followed a flat path, but as we approached the other village we came to a stairwell that seemed to lead straight up into the sky.

The steps themselves were okay, but at the top of those we rejoined the falaj, and this was at times a little tricky to navigate around the cliff walls, especially considering the precipitous drop...

Yes, I realise my mother’s knees are knocking right now reading this, but I (CW) assure you we were safe; even have the pictures to prove it!

On the way home we were treated to another gorgeous sunset...