This weekend
Before I go into detail about this weekend, I’d like to add that I’ve been dead wrong about how hot it’s been here. I thought 40 degrees Celsius was 100*Fahrenheit. I couldn’t figure out the math of how because I knew normal human body temperature is 37.4C (98.6*F). Turns out 40C is actually 104*F SO. That’s been our average day… at like 9 am. Other days it got up to 51C… aka 124*F!!!!!! HA. WHAT?! Where AM I? lol. The low last night was 31, so 87, and trust me, it felt COOL. I knew it was hot, but I didn’t realize that I was walking around in the Middle East’s version of an Easybake Oven. Lol. I’m still giggin’ out about it.
The weekend, if you recall, starts on Thursday, and so, bright and early (8 am) Musleh came to pick us up. I’ve been testing out various methods of hair drying, because I’m too lazy to bring a hair dryer, I have tried the shake method, the shower-the-night-before-and-sleep-on-it method, and most recently, the sit-in-the-Omani-sun method. So far, the sun method definitely attracts the most attention and may not be that effective at 8 am, even here. 2 pm?? It’s brilliant. Outside and in in 5 minutes flat. Musleh arrived just as I began awkwardly sitting outside brushing my hair. Perfect timing. We hopped in, ran to pick up Emma at the school, then down to Royal Hospital to pick up Margaux. An hour and a half later we arrived in Nizwa. Informed by our favorite hotel employee Abdul that we *needed* to go there, we were both surprised and excited by the chance to go to the Souk. And… it was fun… I bought two pieces of silver jewelry that I adore (one is this amazing Rose ring, so cool!) but, I hate seeing Tourists. I know, I know, *I* am a tourist. But, when I spend all my days with natives and resident (Arab or Indian) ex-pats at the hospital with absolutely no westerners… seeing them makes me cringe. They look so out of place. They look so awkward… especially with the famous American belly, wide brimmed hat, fisherman’s vest and zip off, easy-clean pant/shorts. But alas, we made it through the tourist part of the souk and went to the fresh fruit market. When we were there, we met some of Musleh’s friend Saif’s friends who make Halua (the Omani sweet dish). They offered to give us a tour of the factory… and we readily agreed.
We pulled up on this side street, dodging cars in the narrow lane and meandered slowly to the brick covered driveway. We were warned that it was hot, and we entered this tall, narrow hall. The people inside looked surprised, and as they beckoned us to come, we dodged the shoes on the floor and stepped into the workroom. It was a small space – 18 by 50 feet, perhaps, and sweltering. On one side stood lockers and shelving, and on the other was where the magic happened. 6 or 7 huge metal basins hosted two workers that sat on one side. One man held a huge stick with a flattened curved end that sat in the boiling, bubbling, gooey, sticky, halua. Halua is made of Sugar, ghee (butter), starch, Saffranin and Cardamom. The more cardamom, the more expensive the Halwa is. They start at 4 am and work til 12 noon, pushing and stirring and pouring and filling and dishing out the sweetness. It was insane. They showed us the outside where a HUGE pile of wood stood to fill the ovens that sit under the pots. It was incredibly hot. In temperatures of 113, standing or stirring over a hot pot, or by and burning oven sounds terrible.
After this, we went to a traditional restaurant, sat on the floor and ate fish, chicken, meat and rice topped with tomato chutney and lemon. Again, I felt like a kid eating with my hands and making a mess… AKA, I was in complete heaven. After watching 4 rounds of Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal fight, we headed to the Fort. (Ps. Hopkins is awful… I have no respect for him from what I saw today. I hope Pascal won, but we didn’t see the end.) The fort was built back in the day and it was full of rooms and information. The city was recently reformed and so everything was safe, beautiful and fun to wander the rooms, and the rooftops. It was so very, very hot… the feeling of your knees sweating is a singular experience… shins should not produce such gratuitous amounts of the salty stuff. But, some of the exhibits had AC, so it was a gift. With a sad fairwell to Musleh’s friend Saif, we headed to the mountain. I’m exhausted right now, so the description of mountain might be lacking. Hopefully, the pictures make up for it. We climbed and climbed up the twisting roads (Colorado, much?) and was stopped by security to make sure our 4WD worked. We made a bumpy side stop at this phenomenal cliff which over looked this deep carving ravine. The distance was marked by mesas and foggy mountain peaks. On one side, a small village stood treacherously close to the edge, but it’s white buildings made for beautiful art on the grey, black and red sand and rocks. We climbed higher until we reached the camp grounds – I believe we were around 3300m above sea level. (I must add that we made stop after stop, and mostly for poor reasons… the girls wanted the last bathroom, but it was at a mosque, in a quiet village and it was so very awkward. They didn’t really speak, it was so very smelly and of course, there was no toilet paper. I wish I had never gotten out of the car. But oh well… it was over fast enough. J The campground was this high valley with some flat places, some rocky ledges and some sparse bushes. Also, there are wild donkeys here, just roaming the slopes, looking sad and making awkward calls in the middle of the night. Musleh taught us to make Mishkak and Margo made chicken with grilled pears – it was phenomenal. We laughed until the sun set and the full moon rose slowly over the cliff face. There are these ants that live here that run as if their butt had just been burned, it is literally perpendicular to the earth… parallel torso, the 90* turn up to their abdomen – it’s hilarious. Oh, We also had to fan the coals, and it was an amusing time watching Trevor learn how to use a paper-plate fan… he was a fast learner though and so ultimately succeeded. J The earth was hard and there were a lot of rocks we had to shift or avoid sleeping on, but on the grass matt, in our sleeping bags, we slept pretty well. The temperature here was only about 20C(69*F), which was phenomenal . Perfect, perfect weather.
I must add the sleeping for me was an adventure. The full moon kept me awake early on, the rocks woke me when I got too comfy, the distance drumming and singing (UNTIL SIX AM) disturbed the resting and the donkey eating our trash 10 feet away startled me upright. Top that off with idiots with a subwoofer 80 feet up the hill and I can’t really say I slept perfectly well…. I think I woke every hour, especially after the sun rose, until I got up up at 6. Blah. Exhaustion is my close companion right now. Musleh joked about Moy3er (?) or Zombies that night and so we’ve now made more of a joke and suggested that anything lost on this trip was most definitely taken by the Zombies. Strangely, the history of the zombies here is the same as the story of zombies in Jamaica and they don’t know why… fascinating stuff. Oh, Ha. I also broke my sandal today. Great. It’s only pair of sandals I brought and I had dreaded that my cheap sandals would snap if stressed too far on the hot rocks. I hobbled my way from my outdoor bathroom experience (which is surprisingly 1000039383x better than porceline hole bathrooms, or even worse: hover over nasty toilet with no seat or TP. I’d really like guys to try hovering while … pooping I guess. It’s like a workout where you are supposed to relax at the same time. Absurd, nasty, and quite difficult. Count your blessings men, seriously. But back to my shoe.) Gratefully, the fire was still full of coals, so I amped them up, found a larger stick and melted my shoe back together. It works even now, but I don’t trust it will hold for very long at all. I need new sandals. But for the moment, my rubber-melted concoction is working swimmingly. It did mean that I wore a horrible outfit for the rest of the day: Long skirt with running shorts. Gag. I apologize to the people who had to see this horrible fashion dilemma, I am ashamed. ;)
Sadly, we realized today that we only have 6… really 5 days left now, until we leave for Dubai and the world. I’m not ready to be halfway done. I’m not ready to leave. This country is so full of life and the ironic contrast here are wonderful. The harsh landscape with its thorns and sand stands in frank opposition to the compassion, kindness and life of its people. I’m in love, and don’t want to part.
Anyhow, we got up at 7 ish, had left overs for breakfast (the others had breaded foodstuffs), and left. I have no idea how we got where we did, but soon enough, we arrived at a parking lot. The view was nice, but we hadn’t come for the view… at the base of the hill was Wadi Beni Habib (a valley) that, though it was empty of water, hosted a passageway to these incredible ruins that clung to the face of the mountain. Trevor, Claire and I went ballistic meandering happily through the doors, tunnels, window, stairways, roofs to various unexplored territory. I was certain we were going to cause a collapse and die, but we didn’t, so that was wonderful! The building’s structures were probably 100-200 years old, but they had only been vacated 10 or so years ago… so there were some light fixtures and other signs of electricity. One really cool spider clung to the ceiling, but it was otherwise animal free. There were more channels that transported water between the villages, and running waterfalls that made for an incredible hike back to the car. This hike would later cause our calves to camp and our quads to cry on the stairs back to our apartments, but it was amazing.
We then went to a village where I didn’t catch the name. It was a neat village and we walked until we reached this incredible oasis. It was about the size of an average pool in the US, but round and green-blue, and cold like a spring. It was rimmed by rocks on one side by boulders and sand, and on the other by a cliff, with reeds and a stream which fed the pool. One group of Omani men were there and they encouraged us to swim… which we did readily, even if we felt a little nervous about the appropriateness of it all. They laughed at our squealing getting in the water, and hopefully enjoyed the crazy, pale westerners as they enjoyed the water. And then the fun was done. A group of boys showed and informed Musleh that we were not allowed to be there. Musleh claimed it was probably because we were tourists, but Claire felt it might have more to do with the fact we were women. Honestly, I think it was just Musleh and Trevor, they wouldn’t have said a thing. We played a bit (aka, jumped from the boulder once more) and then ran to change. The boys stared our way the whole time. Claire said that she couldn’t believe their audacity to first tell us (rudely, with much anger) to leave, and then to watch us as we changed. Yes, most of us were behind rocks, but I watched them most of the time from my place because, I’m way too tall for Oman and couldn’t really hide. It was terrible. –Deep breath – even though they were intolerant and I was frustrated, the pool felt like heaven on my skin and I forgot how much I missed being cool. I accidentally drank some of the water so I anticipate disease, parasites and other horrible things soon. J
We skedaddled asap and made our way to Nizwa for lunch. We really shouldn’t have stopped. It was a shisha café, which is fine, but smelly, and the waiters got all our drinks wrong. Then it took forever and we were so very late to leave for the cave. When the food got there it was absolutely incredible – great chicken with good hommos and wonderful chips (aka French fries). We scarfed the food down, and ran to the car. Poor Claire is not used to eating so quickly and so didn’t really eat all that much. I felt badly for her, and then badly for myself because I really feel like I should do similarly – I eat so very, very fast… I think it would be wise to learn to eat more slowly all together… but that is a topic for later thought and discussion.
After that we went to Al Hoota cave – a cave that is 200+ million years old, and absolutely massive. There was a train that was on the fritz (Broken) and so we walked to the entrance… and walked some more. The whole cave was lined stairs and concrete paths that allowed visitors to see it without disrupting it too much. Sadly, my favorite characteristics about caves – the cool, the smell and the dark, were missing completely (it was hot and muggy, smelled of human and lit up pretty brightly). But I love caves so very much. The natural art is incomparable, and I really love the shapes of the stones. There was a huge lake in the bottom of the cave, which allows the cave to flood HORRIBLY in the rainy season (July and August), to the point where the water will rise up some 30 m or so and fill the caverns. I must confess my fear of lakes in caves… someone made a joke about swimming in it and I squirmed like crazy. Spelunking is interesting and all, but it scares me silly – tight spaces, underwater, in murky water, surrounded by animals you don’t really know… in water. I have a fear of suffocation in inescapable situations, clearly. But we didn’t get in. We waved at the blind cave fish (a mean joke, I realize since they are blind) and went on our way. We saw bats in the cave and spiders in the museum – and I was glad for that order for the spiders are scary huge, and I even like spiders! Little bodies (one by three centimeters) with HUGE MONGO MEGA legs. No thank you… soon we were done and we were headed home – an incredible feeling. After a quick jaunt to the supermarket, we are settled in back home. ((I love this blog, but I have to tell you, it takes a loooooonnng time – two hours tonight and all I want to do is sleep. Feel lucky random reader, I’m doing this for the both of us, but especially for you. But now I shower, and pass out cold… hallelujah for cleanliness and beds.
Ah- my “Notes” on my iphone remind me of two things: One: my favorite quote from today from Claire to Trevor: “You’ll probably save battery if you figure out how to turn off your ding” in reference to his obnoxious camera that dings as he hits a button or runs through pictures… but since Trevor was complaining of serious exhaustion today, which makes me chattier sometimes, I translated “Battery” as “energy” and “Ding” and “mouth/noise/talking”. I’m sure it doesn’t translate through blog, but I found it wildly entertaining. Two: Oman is made for men, their facilities, bathrooms, workplaces, oases, etc, etc, are made designed for male use and ease. If a woman had designed the system, methinks it’d look quite different – namely toilet paper, cleanliness and equity… That is all.
No comments:
Post a Comment