Drive through the Interior of Oman

A view of the blue mosque from one of the sentinel levels in the fort at Nizwa.
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We woke up early to get a good breakfast before heading into the Interior. It was the day before National Day, and already the town and most roads were nearly deserted. With only a map of Muscat, the capital city, we picked a road that seemed to go southeast. With only a few roads in the northern part of the country, it turned out to be the right choice!

Our first destination was Nizwa, an old fort with a new souq built around it. Because of the large souq, we couldn't find the entrance to the fort at first, and ended walking around the whole thing. That walk was actually more interesting than the fort itself, since we saw a little of the actual town, and the parts of the fort that haven't been "restored." We spent a lot of time trying to take a pic of a man walking down the fort walls in his dishdasha, which is Omani traditional dress. It didn't work out that well. We finally found the entrance to the fort and wandered around a bit. The rooftops reminded me of an Escher painting with random stairways leading to random other rooftops. I guess the point was to be extremely confusing to possible invaders and eventual tourists.

Forts and Dirt Road

people at the souk in Nizwa
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I was very excited to see the goat souq, where apparently there were brightly dressed Bedouin women showing each goat for the market, but unfortunately our timing was off. We did cruise through the other souqs. I was impressed by men walking with the day's veggies balanced on their heads.

Next we headed further inland to check out Bahla Fort. Parts of it date from Pre-Islam, which probably would have been the oldest thing I've ever seen if the whole thing hasn't been closed since 2000 for restoration. Apparently when the restoration is complete, it will be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The most impressive thing, at least visible from the road, was a 7 mile long wall that sentries used to patrol 24/7. It was built with ancient methods but the walls are incredibly hardened now.

courtyard at the fort in Jablin
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After the "Closed for Restoration" sign at Bahla, we drove toward Jabrin, which is the prettiest fort so far. This was built in the 17th Century for an Imam whose name I've forgotten. The fort is neat because within the 2 meter thick walls are tons of living spaces, defense spaces, and the Imam's tomb. The living rooms have wooden ceilings painted with vines and other patterns (unfortunately my pics of these didn't come out). I really liked the ground floor area, where they stored the dates and cooked the food. The date storerooms had one of the most dissatisfying aromas I have yet encountered. They were neat though. They just piled states in these small cells with grooves in the floor and let them sit. Eventually they emptied the liquid in the grooves and had date syrup. Mmmm.

the crazy dirt road from Ibli to Sohar
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Done with forts for a while, we started the real adventure in the day, which was an attempt to drive through the mountains back to the northern coast. On the map there was a rough dashed line that looked like it might be a road that maybe got to Sohar - and that was good enough for us. With a gas tank half-full, we headed west, looking for a road that went anywhere north. After driving through the town of Ibri and all the way to the Customs checkpoint before the oasis that separates Oman and U.A.E. So we headed back, and finally just took a guess. Several wrong turns later, we were headed if not north, definitely toward the mountains. The signs of humanity quickly passed, as did the paved road. The dirt road got more and more narrow until we found ourselves slowly following tire paths through the mountains. My friend was a climber, and really wanted to just check out the rocks. All of the northern mountains are shale, which crumbles at the touch, not really lending itself to climbing of any kind. There were some workers building the road, which I assume will eventually connect Sohar, on the northern coast, with the Interior. With this contraction going on, we would occasionally see a very nice asphalt road with an accompanying sign "Diversion Ahead" but all access to it was blocked with huge rocks or random construction vehicles. After about 4 hours of essentially off-roading, we found a real road and just hoped it went north.

Whitewashed fort at Sohar
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Lucky for us, we reached the town of Sohar shortly, only to find it completely deserted. I still don't know where all the people were. At the Sohar Resort, someone was willing to cook us a quick lunch, which we gobbled down before seeing the fort. The Sohar Fort has whitewashed walls, which I guess is appropriate for a beach town. Again we walked around the perimeter since it was also closed.

The drive back to Muscat went quickly. We were glad to be on a nice highway again.

On a side note, several people have pointed out that the Sultan is gay. We found anecdotal evidence by all the sports cars with extremely low license plate numbers (those are only available to the well-connected in most Middle Eastern countries) driven by very young-looking men. Who knows? I know he married and quickly divorced in the 70s, and the capital of Muscat is absolutely beautiful.