Jabal Shams - April 3, 2010

Today we drove to the top of Jabal Shams (which is the highest point in Oman about 3000m).  Before we got to the point of ascending the mountain we came along a ruin.  We had a wonderful little break while we explored it.  It was quite neat.  You could make out the walls, lookout tower, and the outline of a few other buildings.  The houses look like they had been made out of mud and straw bricks that had baked in the sun.  The tower was in really good shape, we climbed to the top to see what we could see.

Once on our way again, we passed another village that had been abandoned on the ridge.  They didn't move very far, just down into the wadi, but their farms were below the old village.

At this point we started to climb and very quickly, so good thing the road was paved for 3/4's of it and in very good shape.  The view going up was absolutely amazing.  It took us quite awhile to get to the top and we thought that it would never end.  BUT we finally found the starting point of our hike.  Our destination was As Sab (an abandoned village on the mountain somewhere :) ).  We found this goat path that was our trail (it was very well marked).  The kids thought it was great fun to see who could find the next trail marker - it was great for us because it ended up being a very long hike (round trip with breaks - almost the 4 hrs).  The kids did an awesome job in the hiking and listening department, because as I said the path was a goat path!!  Take a look at the pictures, some great views.

We passed a few hikers on their way back and they told us it wasn't much father and that it was worth the hike, so we pushed onwards.  As we got closer we could make out their terrences that they used for their crops.  Then we started to see their houses, and started to wonder why on earth they had picked this spot to make their village.  The information from the hiking map said that there had been about 15 families living here at As Sab, were well protected against enemies (no kidding!) and that there was a good supply of water.  So after a long hike in we had an explore of the houses, saw a few goats and had our snack.  It was neat to be able to go into the houses and see how they would have been living there.  They were very low houses, dirt/rock floor, black up the side of the walls from the fires, the back wall was the cliff.  Again the walls were mud bricks and rocks with some wood for door frames and part of their roofs.  We didn't get over to the terrences because we knew we had to hike back and didn't want to leave it too late.  I would love to know how they farmed it though, because the terrences went right to the edge of the cliff.

The last photo, Samantha had noticed the face when we had stopped for a break on our way out.  I thought it was a pretty neat rock as well!

Once back at the hotel we flaked out and had a swim.  What a day!