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Job's Tomb
Birkit Al Mawz
Jebel Shams |
Click here to see all the pictures in
the Jebel Shams photo
gallery.
 We
left Nizwa mid-afternoon, and we were
hungry. Peachy told us he had the perfect spot to stop and eat.
Outside of the town of Al Hamra, just off the main road, is a 20
foot tall rock with a engravings estimated to be 3000 years old. One
set of engravings shows three figures: a man, a woman, and a child.
The story is that a deformed child was born to a man and his wife.
The parents were distraught and killed the child against this rock.
The gods transformed the child into a figure on the rock, along with
the parents. The rock is named after the father, Hasat bin Sult.
We continued toward the mountains and passed the abandoned
village of Ghul, perched
on the side of the mountain above Wadi Ghul. At that point you begin to
really rise into the mountains, the Jebel Akhdar (the Green
Mountains), toward the highest peak, Jebel Shams (the
Sun Mountain). The road is dirt, windy, with nothing between you and
a long way down. We happened to be going up on the day of a rare
occurrence, rain on the desert side of the mountains. We even saw a
mountain waterfall. Peachy was driving, and, finding out we had a
science teacher among us, was pointing out geologic formations in
all directions. Suddenly the car slid, turning sideways on the
muddy road. My arms shot out in front of me against the dashboard
(which, on later review, was pointless). Peachy recovered control of
the car, and it was a much quieter ride the rest of the way up.
 Finally
we reached the top, at 10,000 feet the tallest peak in Oman. And the
family went exploring on ledges looking 10,000 feet down into Wadi
Nakhr Gorge, known as the Grand Canyon of Oman. It was
bright and sunny, and the views were terrific. As we turned to
leave, we were greeted by local residents, the Shuwawis (the
mountain people). They had all kinds of things for sale. We bought
a small rug, but to be honest were really thinking more about going
down the mountain than anything else, and missed taking their
picture.
Going down was quiet and uneventful. The only thing we wanted to
do was make it down the mountain, and as a result we missed a
terrific picture. As we reached the point where the road began
paralleling Wadi Ghul, we saw the water from the mountain rain
rolling into the wadi, slowly filling it. In front of the
headwaters, a young boy was playfully walking. Probably a once in a
lifetime picture, but with our only thought being to get to the
bottom of the mountain, we chose not to stop, which we now regret.
But at that point, it was down off the mountain and onward to
Misfah. Click here to see all the pictures in
the Jebel Shams photo
gallery.
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الصفحة
الرئيسية
الصفحات
Salalah
Ubar and the Rub' al-Khali
The Edge of the Rub' al-Khali
Nizwa
Misfah |
