weekly photo challenge: kiss

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Oman, postaweek2013, weekly photo challenge

Saturday, February 16: The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Kiss.  There are a lot of ways to capture a kiss, between two people – lovers, family, friends; two animals, or even just the sending or receiving of a kiss.

In a new post specifically created for this challenge, share a picture which means KISS to you!

the kiss of the camel

lunch in al hamra & a walk through misfat al abriyyin

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Oman, Travel

Thursday, January 10:  We’re pretty exhausted after our week of activities and our walk through the hot Bahla Fort, so we stop in Al Hamra at the ubiquitous “Restaurant” for a lunch of vegetable biryani and rice.  Adam loves these restaurants in Oman, and today he decides he will eat like the Omanis, using his right hand to shovel rice and vegetables into his mouth.

“Restaurant” in Al Hamra

Alex and Mike

Adam eats like the Omanis

We then drive up to the village of Misfat Al Abriyyin, where we follow the flag-marked trail down the terraces deep into a jungle-like plantation.  We follow twisting lanes, covered passages like wind tunnels with cool air blowing through, gateways and serpentine flights of stairs.  We’re surrounded by terraces of date palms, banana palms, lemon trees, pomegranates, and Bougainvillea.

banana palms at misfat

Alex & Adam next to their favorite fruit: banana palms

Alex poses reaching for bananas

Adam

banana palm leaf

stone wall

terrace

the view to the valley

Alex and Adam on the path

Mike takes a rest

Alex and Adam strolling through

Alex the monkey

Alex and Adam, tired out from 9 days of being on the go!

We originally planned on taking a much longer hike, but I think our 9 days of being constantly on the go has finally gotten to us.  All of us are too tired to take another step.  We decide to head back to my flat to relax on this, their last night in Oman.

On the way back, we come across a small group of camels nibbling away at some trees.  The owner is sitting on a nearby rock and he doesn’t seem to mind us mingling with his animals.  Each camel has its four legs tied together with a rope, so it can’t move very quickly.  They all seem quite docile and friendly. We stop to check them out, along with about 10 other random passers-by.

a nibbling camel along the road home

Mike befriends a camel

camel encounter

Alex and Adam with their camel friend

Alex, Mike and Mr. Camel

a little kiss

travel theme: hot

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Oman, travel theme

Saturday, December 1:  Ailsa of Where’s my backpack? has challenged us to come up with photos for HOT.

I have lived in Oman for the last year and 2 months and I have never experienced heat like I’ve experienced here, except during a month I spent in Egypt in July 2007.  In both places, temperatures regularly reach 40-45 degrees Celsius (104 – 113 Fahrenheit) in the summer.  When you breathe, sometimes you feel that your windpipe and lungs are turning to chafing hot sand. They literally burn.

If you want to see more images of hot, look through ALL the pictures in my entire blog.  It is hot here year round.  In the winter, the mornings and evenings are cool, but during the day, it always gets hot.  Only on Jebel Akhdar, or swimming in a wadi or the sea, is a person able to cool off.

Here are some images for HOT.  Some of the images come from India, Ethiopia and Jordan. Click on any of them for a full-sized slide show.

As Sifah Beach in Oman

Cairns on Jebel Shams, Oman

Camels in Jaisalmer, India

Saturday market at Lalibela, Ethiopia

The Dead Sea in Jordan

the desert and mountains outside of Sur, Oman

Ruins in Al Hamra, Oman

the corniche in Alexandria, Egypt

the Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza. Cairo, Egypt.

weekly photo challenge: dreaming

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postaweek2012, weekly photo challenge

Saturday, July 14: This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Dreaming.

Here are some photos in Oman that I think represent Dreaming…

This one is in Wadi Tiwi on the east coast of Oman.

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. ~ Gloria Steinem

Another shot of Wadi Tiwi.

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. ~ Paul Valery

The village of Wekan, made more dreamlike with some Omani friends.

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. ~ Zhuangzi

And a common sight in Oman, clouds through the date palms. In Al Hamra.

“I’m a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.”
~ Mike Tyson

sunday post: door

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Sunday Post

Sunday, May 27: Jakesprinter’s Sunday Post challenge is Door.  He writes:  A door is a movable structure used to open and close off an entrance, typically consisting of a panel that swings on hinges or that slides or rotates inside a space.

When open, doors admit ventilation and light. The door is used to control the physical atmosphere within a space by enclosing the air drafts, so that interiors may be more effectively heated or cooled. Doors are significant in preventing the spread of fire. They also act as a barrier to noise.

Oman has interesting doors everywhere. Some are painted metal and some are intricately carved wooden doors.  I must have a real fascination with them because I have quite a huge collection of pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites:

This one is from Nizwa souq.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. ~ Alexander Graham Bell

Here’s one from the village of Wekan at Wadi Mistal.

God enters by a private door into every individual. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here’s another door from the ruins at Al Hamra.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door. ~ Emily Dickinson

a morning walk through al hamra & misfat al abriyyen

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Oman, Travel

Friday, February 24:   This morning, my friend Kathy and I get up early and head to two adjacent villages about 40km northwest of Nizwa, Al Hamra and Misfat Al Abriyyen.  We’ve been trying to get more exercise lately, taking walks after or before work, just to get our bodies moving, to shake out our stiff & creaky joints and create some energy within ourselves.  We eat a big breakfast of eggs with tomatoes, onions and garlic (yummy), turkey sausages, and coffee, prepared by Kathy, and we head off into the horizon.

a carved door in the old village of Al Hamra

Al Hamra has one of Oman’s best-preserved old towns, with mudbrick houses in various states of disrepair and a maze of rubble-strewn alleyways spilling down a hillside to an oasis of date palms and banana trees below.

Hello, how ar-r-r-r-re you??

We park the car and are met by several small children who shyly greet us in chirpy voices: “How ar-r-r-r-e you???” They pose shyly for a picture and then we say “Ma’asalaama” and pick a random alley through which to enter the mostly abandoned town.

Purely by chance we come upon one of the two museums in Al Hamra, Bait al-Jabal Museum, billed as “the first museum in Oman presenting antiques and masterpieces in their traditional setting.  The house is more than 210 years old and is situated in old Al Hamra town which is over 500 years old.”  The museum contains artifacts between 300 and 2,000 years old, from Oman and other parts of the ancient world.

the engraved doors at Bait al-Jabal Museum in Al Hamra…and the kind curator

The entry fee is a steep 2 rials.  We poke our heads in the door but I tell the curator I can’t afford it since payday isn’t until Sunday.  (This has been an expensive month for me between my car service and my sons visiting!)  He kindly invites us to come in anyway.  I guess business is slow and he wants some company.

He graciously shows us the old front doors, panels carved with Arabic decorations and script from the Quran.  He guides us through the atmospheric house with its rough-hewn mudbrick walls and rickety steps.  All the floors are wet as he has just watered down the house to “make it fresh” for the morning.  I’m sure without the watering down it gets very dusty.

Written Arabic documents

We see Moroccan silver kettles, a 400-year-old elephant leather kettle, and a traditional mill used to grind starch used to make Halwa, a traditional Omani dessert.  A 300-year-old dagger made of leather and wood and metal is labeled: “found in a desolate place.”  Old locks and keys, a pistol made in England, and handwritten old letters and books are showcased throughout the museum.

inside the museum

My favorite room has four models made of date palm who display old Omani handicrafts.  Another room has colorful Omani traditional costumes.

the date palm Omani craftsmen

The curator then invites us down the street to show us his small “factory” and shop for making and selling Halwa, the traditional Omani dessert made from starch, eggs, sugar, water, ghee, saffron, cardamom, nuts and rosewater from Jebel Akhdar. It is cooked here in Al Hamra in a large cooking pot called a mirjni over a wood fire for about 4-5 hours with constant stirring.

Omanis cooking halwa

Kathy and I leave our informative Omani guide and wander around Al Hamra’s alleyways, and then down into the oasis of date palms and banana trees.

Kathy in the gardens of Al Hamra

the village of Al Hamra

the view down to Al Hamra from the mountain road going to Misfat al Abriyyen

We then drive another 5 km up to the lovely mountainside village of Misfat al Abriyyin, where we wander through more winding alleyways between ochre-colored stone buildings.  This village could almost resemble a medieval French hill village if it were more restored.

the green oasis of Misfat al Abriyyen

It’s fun to wander through these twisting lanes through covered passages, gateways and steps.  We make our way down to the falaj which runs below the village and waters a huge tropical oasis which bursts in exclamation points of greenery: grasses, an abundance of date palms, banana palms, and Bougainvillea.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We check out the Misfat Bed and Breakfast, where I think I will stay one weekend when I want to chill out and relax.  The proprietor takes us to the rooftop where breakfast and dinner are served and where the view over the mountains and the tropical oasis below is wonderfully peaceful.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. ~ Greek Proverb

We follow the falaj back up the hill and then where it runs along a steep rocky gorge dotted with more date palms and miniature terraced fields. We come to a turret or some kind of watchtower sitting along the path and this is where we decide to turn around.

the end of our hike

It’s around 12:30 and the hottest part of the day is beginning.  We decide we’ve had a good walk, plenty of fresh air and exercise for one day.  We head back to Nizwa, where I lie down to read and end up taking a 2-hour nap.  A bit of heaven in the afternoon 🙂

me next to a waterfall tumbling through the falaj