Visiting Oman (II): Nizwa and surroundings

After visiting Muscat and leaving to Nizwa, a inland town located between spectacular mountains, the so needed in every trip adventure part began to happen. I stayed here for four days, when the most of anecdotes and curious moments took place.

I left the apartment where I stayed very keen to explore and discover with more light the streets and buildings I passed the night before, when I arrived. It was very nice to enjoy again the countryside atmosphere, with people moving around by bicycles, without traffic or annoying horns. I was also surrounded by mountain landscapes, very convenient for a walk. But the trekking had to wait one more day since I decided to go to Bahla before, half an hour distance by car, famous place because its splendid fort, UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the way there I made friendship with the taxi driver, Ahmed, a guy who proposed me to take me to the mountains when he would be free, something that I couldn’t reject.

Returning to Nizwa was a bit more complicated because I couldn’t find any taxi and in that moment I really realized that in Oman you need to rent a car if you want to move easily around. Even so, finally I found a very kind man who offered to drive me to Nizwa. That wouldn’t be the only time that something like that happened to me in this trip.

Once in my destination, I enjoyed the last daylight hours to walk by the souk, with a lot of pottery, and the fort, the oldest in Oman. It is a beautiful place, containing ancient objects and texts and a tower that offers an amazing view of the city and surroundings. A very recommendable place in spite of most of it has been restored many times and there are almost no remains of the original structure.

Stalls in the souq

The following day, I went to another nearby town, this time Misfat al Abryeen, a picturesque village surrounded by terraces full of vegetation, where the famous falaj, a traditional irrigation system, also World Heritage, twist around. This method of irrigation is the same than the ditches built by the Arabs in the Iberian Peninsula, which took the Roman aqueducts as inspiration. 

Out of the village there are several trekking routes where you can walk between canyons. I found a very good one but I couldn’t complete it because I wanted to be back before sunset. There are only two places to stay in Misfat, and the two were completed, so I decided to walk downhill towards Al Hamra, the neighboring town. In the way, two persons who carried chickens, stopped and invited me to go in the driver’s cabin. They barely spoke English but I could make them understand I needed find a hotel. I found a place but they also didn’t have empty rooms but the owner, very kind, had a friend who had a friend who just opened a kind of guest house two days ago. That night, in a empty house, all for me, I became the first guest in that, I hope, future prosperous business.

I was already inside of a dynamic of unexpected and surrealistic situations, so I didn’t mind to go with Ahmed, the taxi driver, to explore the Jebel Akhdar mountains, in a old 4X4 with Arab music playing loudly. Beyond the place, where the most impressive spot is the abandoned town of Birkat al Mouz, it was very interesting to chat with my improvised guide, a boy with a very traditional and conservative mind, about different social and cultural topics. For me it was a kind of shock when I listened how he explained me how his uncle could manage his two wives, or how he saw completely normal that women in his town rarely go out and were almost completely covered (some of them even don’t show their eyes). I started to think about how the culturalization processes impact people’s attitudes and I could imagine how could be this guy’s reaction if I would talk about certain questions concerning the sexuality and social rights which in Spain are perceived as legitimate and completely acceptable. I didn’t dare actually to start a debate since, for some reason, I knew it was going to be difficult to make him understand my opinion (and, well, I didn’t want to be abandoned right there in the mountain).

When one is in the capital, it is relatively easy to arrive anywhere or get whatever you want, something that it is not always possible, as I could realize, in rural areas. But, what could mean an annoyance, it is actually an important part of the essence of traveling and this can be, maybe, what I will remember better in my future. It is true that, as I said, Oman is not the best country for backpackers, but finally it is possible to arrive to any place with determination, confidence and also, of course, a bit of luck.