Tombs and a shave

We were joined today by Amelie, who is a good friend of Adeline’s from Brittany. The five of us headed for Jabel Misht, which is the best rock climbing mountain in the Arabian Peninsula; according to our guidebook at least. From the side we approached, the rock face was nearly vertical and the main cliff had a drop of 1000 metres!

We were certainly not going to attempt anything to do with that mountain, but rather stopped at beehive tombs that date back to the second Millenium B.C.E. These are held together just as a pile of rocks, no mortar or any other building material that I could see. These apparently were the necropolises of ancient traders, since this area was on a major trade route and were quite interesting to poke your head into and see how early human ancestors would have been buried.

Unlike tourist sites in Europe or the States which always provide plenty of background information, sites here in Oman almost never accompanied by any such material. In fact, they often aren’t even signposted from the roads, so you have to know where they are in advance or be lucky enough to stumble upon them. This is already changing through their efforts to increase tourism in the country.

From there we drove further along Wadi Damm for a picnic under a nice big tree. After lunch we wandered on foot up the wadi, past a recharge dam and up to a nice pool in the shadow of several large rock formations. A recharge dam is a method of storing water and then slowly releasing it over several weeks or months. Most of the water is stored underground to prevent evaporation and with the falaj systems, these are a crucial part of bringing water to villages.

There was meant to be an ever more beautiful pool further up, but due to time restraints and the difficult terrain further along, we were not able to carry on. However, there was another good perch to jump from, so we amused ourselves with a couple of pleasant plunges from different spots into the refreshing wadi water.

Upon our return to Muscat, we dropped Cora and Amelie off at Lulu, the Indian hypermarket, so Amelie could experience it properly and Thierry and I headed off to an Indian barber. Now from the pictures you can see that neither of us have flowing locks, however the real experience here was not in getting our few hairs cut shorter, but rather having a shave and head massage. The shave is with a proper straight razor and he actually goes over your skin twice, which was a far improvement over my normal half assed once over I do every two days.

After the shave this big burly Indian subjects your face and skull to various massage techniques, some more pleasant than others. My brain still felt like it was banging around in my skull when he grabbed my head and twisted quickly first one way and then the other. I didn’t even have time to register the similarities in technique that you see in action movies, when the hero quickly and quietly dispatches a superfluous bad guy. All in all it was an interesting experience, especially for the 1.5 Rials it cost (equiv to ~$4)!