This weekend we went up into the mountains to hike and camp.
We spend the first day on “green” mountain (جبل أخضر). The drive up was kind of fun but also kind of scary. The road just kept twisting and turning and the incline was pretty steep; we went all the way up these massive mountains. This picture was taken when we were already most of the way up.
Once we got to the top, we ate lunch and then made a short hike from our lunch spot over to and through a small village. It was pleasant though. Hot, but pleasant.
The views from on top of the mountains were great. There are villages on the tops of these mountains which is pretty cool.
We also stopped by a wadi (valley) and checked out a little abandoned village. In the second picture, my friend was trying to take a picture of this doorway and I just happened to walk up the stairs from the outside at the right moment 🙂
Once we left the wadi, we went to our camp site to set up.
We had four or so hours between setting up and sunset. This was the first day of Ramadan so we had to wait until the sun went down to actually get food from a nearby restaurant. During that four hours, I tried to nap a little and let the time pass. I maybe slept for 30 minutes and woke up in a pool of sweat. It was hot. Very, very hot. Eventually, I gave up on the nap and joined a few others in conversation.
That night was pretty refreshing. We ate dinner in the dark and it got pretty cold that night. I slept on a small mattress in my tent with a top sheet. I could have used a real blanket. It was breezy.
That night was refreshing, with the winds and all, but also a little strange. In the middle of the night I woke up to the sound of a large group of men talking (loudly) and laughing. It sounded like they walked right through our campsite. What they were doing in the middle of nowhere beats me. There are towns on the very tops of these mountains but there wasn’t anything immediately close to us but a small park.
In addition to the strangers’ voices, I heard a very loud animal, twice, during the night. It woke me up and I had no idea what it was, I just hoped it wouldn’t come any closer. The second time I heard it I realized it was just a donkey. A very loud donkey (I didn’t know how loud those creatures were until it woke me up at 4am).
In the morning, we ate and headed back down the mountain. Almost two hours later we were at the top of another mountain, “sun” mountain (جبل شمس), getting ready to go for a hike.
The hiking path that we walked was along side a huge canyon. I’m afraid of heights, or more accurately, I’m afraid of falling, so it freaked me out a little bit that one wrong step could’ve meant me tumbling over the canyon’s edge. I tried not to think about this. But I also couldn’t resist looking down. Not because it was scary but because it was absolutely stunning. I took pictures but they really don’t capture just how big and deep this canyon was.
Believe it or not, I’m in the picture below, along with 10 other people. Even if you zoom in, you probably won’t be able to see us. That’s how big this canyon was. Huge.
Clumsy as I am, I had to stop in order to take the view in. Had I tried to look around and continue walking, I most certainly would have tripped.
When we got there, we were told that the hike would be about 3 hours long and that the turnaround point would be a small abandoned village. We were walking and all we could see was this canyon making a huge U and the corner was so far away. We couldn’t see the trail continue and we couldn’t see the village so we wondered if we would ever find the village. After only an hour of hiking, we found the village.
We stopped, had a quick snack, and then headed back. By the time we headed back , it was 12:30 P.M., the hottest time of the day and we were all already a little tired and running low on water. Everyone sort of broke off, walking the hike back at their own pace. My friend and I walked it together and it was pretty miserable. The way back consisted of a lot of inclines and very little shade. Our water was disappearing and the sun was beating on us. At one point, I was watching the ground, careful of my steps, while the canyon in my peripheral seemed to be flying by, making me a little dizzy. I had to focus pretty hard to stay alert because the edge of a deep canyon is a terrible place to pass out.
After an hour, we finally made it back. We sat and waited for the others to finish. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get water right away because the drivers hadn’t expected us back so soon and had left. So we sat under a tree next to a goat farm. When the drivers returned, we ate a little, chugged some water, and played keep away from some goats.
We headed back down the mountain, got back on our bus, and drove back to Muscat.
It was somewhat of a long, hot and exhausting trip, but I must say, the views were beautiful.
Source: The Other Rocky Mountains
Full Article: جبل أخضر وجبل شمس