Oman, the Akhdar Mountains, Nizwah and Muscat
Foreign places can grow in the imagination during a person’s formative years – we can nurture romantic and colourful ideas about a country or region and somehow they stick as you grow older.
For example, mental images of the Middle East can be seeded and amplified by biblical stories. Then, perhaps, we may watch a classic movie like Lawrence of Arabia - and suddenly the hot dusty region takes on a whole new allure and fascination.
What we see in our Arabian Night tinted imaginations are sandy deserts dotted with green oasis; bare mountains hiding white villages carved out of rock, lined with date palm gardens watered by clear flowing streams; haughty camels strutting where other creatures would fear to tread; mysterious gun-toting people in long robes; the haunting sounds of the Imam calling folk to prayer…
Then the world changes. Suddenly the Middle East – or much of it anyway – becomes a little bit hazardous for Westerners. In some places – the most Arabic and perhaps beautiful of them all, like the Yemen – travel becomes downright dangerous.
We find ourselves writing off all those oriental dreams of Sinbad and Scheherazade. For many of us the more interesting destinations in the Arab world have become unsafe, while the few relatively secure places are two-dimensional and boring.
My guide in the Omani Mountains
And then we discover Oman…
The wild and wonderful sultanate is all you ever imagined the Arabic Middle East could be. And perhaps a little more. Much if it is stunningly beautiful. The scenery can be awesome and dramatic. And the people are fantastically friendly – even though we Brits helped put the boot in to some of the hill tribes not so very long ago.
Akhdar Mountains
In fact, I went to a crag above one very beautiful village high in the Akhdar Mountains where my guide told me we’d be going no further. He said the people there were fed up with being gawped at by the odd tourist who was passing.
“Tourists? What tourists?” I protested looking at the vast empty rocky amphitheatre around me…
That’s when he told me the truth - that British forces had bombed the place in the 1950s.
I tell you this because I wish to underline just how warm and friendly most Omanis are, regardless of any British involvement in the country’s history. This is partly because these patriotic people are passionate about the country in which they live and are proud to share it with visitors.
They also seem happy with the Sultan who rules over them. He is the son of the previous leader – the chap who called in the British to help him put down a five year Imam-led rebellion.
Qaboos bin Said Al Said has ruled since 1970 – when he made sure things changed a good deal. The father had run the country with a harsh whip – and one can imagine he’d have met with an uncomfortable comeuppance had he survived to see last year’s Arabic Spring.
The son is different. He began his rule by offering an amnesty to his father’s old opponents - then set about fighting disease, illiteracy, and poverty, upgrading educational and health facilities and creating a modern infrastructure.
Oman is an oil-rich country and this particular sultan has done the wise thing and shared around some of the wealth. Workers don’t pay taxes and yet they are given free education and healthcare as well as property on which they can build a home as soon as they are married.
No wonder they weren’t gathering in the squares of Muscat to overthrow the government last year…
So that’s the background and why I say you can go there and travel freely and safely. Now for some of the details of the adventures on offer.
MUSCAT
Most journeys to Oman begin in the capital Muscat, which is where the modern international airport is and also where the government stages a huge annual beano. This year’s Muscat Festival attracted over 1.2 million visitors – I was one of them and enjoyed my day and night out there, even though the real purpose of my journey was head up into those alluring mountains.
Hesp in Muscat in 2012
At the festival’s heritage and cultural village just about every Omani tradition ever invented is on display and you can watch artisans plying age-old skills as well as visit a working souk, where you can buy woven baskets, pottery and silver and so on.
Muscat is an interesting city with many suburbs
To be honest, though, all this is better done in the city or in the market towns of the deserts and mountains.
Muscat’s own ancient souk is a particularly wonderful location in which to duck and dive – a great myriad of a place down by the old harbour where the thoroughfares and byways are covered to protect them from the relentless sun.
The result is that the dark alleys and brightly lit shops and stalls take on a thrilling appeal of their own, and meandering around is relatively hustle-free compared with souks in other Middle Eastern cities I’ve visited.
Muscat dates from the first century AD when its harbour won a name for itself as one of the main exporters of frankincense to Greece and Rome. You can still buy excellent frankincense there today - I regularly use the stuff on my wood burning stove at home to give the house an oriental aroma.
Many centuries later the Portuguese heard about the wealth of this region and in 1507 gained control of Muscat. A century and a half later they were thrown out by local Imam - and so the ding-dong power struggle went on. You can still see old castles and turrets perched all around the ancient part of the city, so that you are left in no doubt that this was a place which required much defending down the years.
I was staying up the coast some 40 miles north of Muscat at the Millennium Resort, Mussanah - a luxury hotel with its own apartment complexes and harbour. It was built just a couple of years ago to play host to a massive international sailing competition and the place still acts as a hub for serious water-sports activities now.
But the Millenium Resort is also a first class hotel where the food and service is as good as anything I’ve experienced in the region before - although it has to be said that the flat coastal plain on which it is situated is far from lovely.
However, my itinerary took me away from the place each day as guides from the excellent Bahwan Travel Group turned up in comfortable, air conditioned four wheel drives to take me exploring. And after a day travelling on rough tracks in the mountains it was more than pleasant to return to the absolute luxury of the resort despite its surroundings.
It was the adventures – mainly in the Akhdar Mountain region - that I shall remember for a long, long time to come.
The range extends some 200 miles just inland from the Gulf of Oman and is as spectacular a sequence of eminences as I’ve ever seen. The highest point, Jabal Shams (the mountain of the sun), is almost 10,000 feet in altitude and is the highest point in Oman and the whole of eastern Arabia – and I know for a fact that it’s altitudinous because I was taken almost to the summit where you will notice a distinct shortness of breath.
These are desert mountains – by which I mean that they are, for the most part, bare rock. However, the higher areas receive a foot of precipitation each year which is enough, in the incredibly deep ravines and valleys at least, for scattered shrubs and trees and allows some agriculture.
Hence the name which, translated, means the Green Mountains. A bit of a colourful exaggeration, I have to say… But then, I come from the emerald Westcountry.
The green bits you see are mainly where the locals have built complex runnels and aqueducts to irrigate terraced gardens in the valley bottoms.
These are magical oases among vast vertical slabs of bare rock which seem to reach high into the heavens.
And I saw a great many of the mountains - roaring ever higher up seemingly impossible tracks in our four wheel drive. The most memorable journey was up the amazing Wadi Nakher, located in the depths of Oman's deepest canyon. Believe me, this is the nearest thing you’ll see to the Grand Canyon this side of the Atlantic.
Apart from the little villages which cling impossibly to the sides of crags – with their terraced gardens and date palms looking more biblical than anything I’ve ever seen before – the place exudes a sense of eternal ancientness.
This is perhaps echoed by the fact that humans have been living in these lonesome places for a very long time – probably as far back as 100,000 years. That makes our own ancient sites on Dartmoor and Exmoor look about as old as a new town on the outskirts of Exeter…
Somehow you are aware of this time-immemorial aspect of the landscape as you lurch and bounce along the tracks that pass up through the wadis – which are the river valleys or ravines that man and his domestic animals have been plying up and down since way before the last Ice Age.
It’s not all savage scenery – the Jebel Al Akhdar is renowned for its fruit orchards which you find in the aforementioned terraces. Apricots, figs, peaches, grapes, apples, pears, pomegranates, plums, almonds and walnuts are grown up here amid the rocks under the endlessly blue skies.
Even better known are the roses of Jebel Al Akhdar - rosewater is distilled in homes across the range and the air in spring is said to be filled with fragrance.
Nizwah
Perhaps most noteworthy of all is Nizwa - the gateway to the mountain range. The oasis city was the nation’s capital back in the 6th and 7th centuries, which means that it is a place which groans with history and romance.
And this in turn means that is the most popular tourist attraction in Oman – although you could hardly say the visitors overrun the many historic buildings or the imposing fort built in the mid 17th century by Imam Sultan Bin Saif Al Ya'ribi.
The town has a population of around 70,000 and is almost completely surrounded by an immense palm oasis that stretches for five or so miles along the course of two wadis. At the very heart of the place is the famous, bustling, souq where you buy all manner of locally made copper and silver jewellery.
Nizwa, which is sometimes called “The Pearl of Islam”, wasn’t always so welcoming of tourists. Just 60 years ago the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger was forced to steer clear of the place having arrived at an oasis just outside. Back in those days the town was run by an extremely strict regime and Thesiger’s Bedouin companions were convinced that the Nizwah-ites would have his guts for garters.
They don’t spurn tourists nowadays but try and sell them some kind of craft item or nick-nack instead. Which is fine – although I have one complaint when it comes to the relationship that Omanis have with their visitors…
And that is the food. I’d been looking forward to some kind of local repast in Nizwah, but it was never going to happen. It seems that food preparation in Oman is almost always done by women – but in this Muslim country they are not really expected to be out and about making a living by cooking for strangers.
The result is that there are no restaurants selling local food. Eating outside the big international hotels means dining in one of the ubiquitous Indian restaurants that have a complete national monopoly when it comes to cuisine in this country.
Which is also fine. I like Indian food – especially the Keralan cuisine which is often served in the road houses out there in the mountains. But I would also have liked to sample Omani cooking.
However… This is the one and only downside of this most extraordinary of countries – and it will not for a second stop me planning another trip there as soon as I can.
Fact file
Martin travelled with Oman Air which offers daily direct flights to Muscat. Call 08444 822309 or visit www.omanair.com.
Details of the Millennium Resort – Mussanah can be found at: www.millenniumhotels.com//om/millenniumresortmussanah
Tours within the country can be arranged with the Bahwan Travel Group - www.bahwantravels.com
For more information about Oman visit www.omantourism.gov.om
Muscat Festival: www.muscat-festival.com
