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I smelled it before I saw it, the sharp scent of smoldering charcoal mixed with something I couldn’t quite put my finger on – though it was familiar. I followed my nose down a narrow backstreet in Nizwa, finding a crowd massed around an enormous, stone-lined pit. The men were heaving large, charred lumps out of the pit and into wheelbarrows waiting at ground level. On closer inspection, the lumps seemed to be blackened burlap sacks, but I was still mystified by what they contained. A number of men in this early morning huddle (it was barely 7am) noticed the gawking foreigner and waved me to the front for a better view. One broke a big smile and asked: “You want meat?”

Suddenly it all made sense. And I could pin point the elusive smell: barbecue! So this was what had become of all the slaughtered sheep from Eid – slow cooked in an earthen oven for possibly two days. Now these Nizwais were disinterring the tender roasted lamb, preparing to distribute it among the community.

I politely declined a portion (as I obviously had nothing to do with the killing of the sheep – or the holiday, for that matter!) and continued on my morning stroll. Nizwa was constantly throwing such lovely moments in my path.

***

The interior, defined in large part by the mountains, is in some ways literally the heart of Oman. At times it was the political center of the region, at times it was a rival to the coast. Indeed, not long after the Omani Empire divided into two (Oman and Zanzibar going separate ways under the leadership of rival brothers), Oman proper divided into coast (called Muscat) and interior (called Oman – confused yet?), ruled by a sultan and an imam respectively. Sultan Said attempted to reassert his authority over the mountainous regions, setting off the Jebel (Mountain) Wars of the 1950s. Oman wasn’t reunited formally until 1959. So literally to know only the coast of Oman is to know half the story!

To understand the interior, then, you need to understand Nizwa, the “Pearl of Islam”, the political and cultural heart of the heart. At some points, it was the power center of Oman in totality; when the country was divided into Muscat and Oman, between Sultanate and Imamate, it was the seat of the interior’s Imam. It remains an important “second” city to Muscat.

When I arrived in Nizwa, after my excursion into the Wahiba Sands, I had planned on spending two nights, using it as a base from which to explore the region. I did that (see below), but I also decided it was good place to just be, to witness Eid al-Adha and the 40th anniversary of Sultan Qaboos’ reign (celebrated on National Day, November 18). So I grabbed what might have been the last hotel room in Nizwa for a third night (and possibly in all of Oman – the Eid holiday was in full swing, and the country’s limited hotel offerings were booked to the max).

Eid itself (November 16), the day I arrived, was eerily quiet in Nizwa, as all of the Omanis seemed to be celebrating at home with family. The only people about in the streets were a few Indian men, lounging in the shade of the shuttered streets of the souk or under trees lining the town’s dry riverbed. So I went exploring some of the other towns in the area, particularly focusing on the forts – some of which are quite impressive.

The forts and castles that seem to dot all of Oman were even more impressive in al-Dakhiliyah (the apt name of the province), almost growing out of the mountains. The Nizwa Fort was closed for the holiday, but I vowed to come back before I left. Heading west out of Nizwa, I aimed for the town of Bahla. After winding a bit through the new part of town, I crested a hill and saw the dramatic line of mud wall fortifications that snaked into the surrounding mountains and then, rising above the valley, a dramatically situated fort that has been in the process of being restored since the 1980s (meaning, of course, it is closed to the public*). Perhaps due to the stormy sky as backdrop– the only time I thought it might rain while I was traveling in Oman – this fort really struck me. I decided it was my favorite, and it remained so even after I saw the one in nearby Jabrin, noted as a prime example of the genre.

Perhaps getting a little fort-fatigue, I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring some of the villages in the foothills of the mountains – and one up in the mountains, Misfat. I discovered the hairpin road up to this precariously perched town in time to catch the sunset over the mountains and plains.

***

The following day I woke bright and early to head up into the mountains proper. Actually up the highest mountain in Oman, Jebel Shams (Sun Mountain), vantage for the deepest canyon in the Arabian Peninsula, Wadi Ghul – one of the sights I had been most looking forward to on this trip.

With the Land Cruiser, the drive up was surprisingly easy – though I dreaded the long descent! (I learned to drive on the flatlands of Indiana; I am not well versed in the ups and downs of mountain driving…but after learning to navigate the sands, surely I could handle this? Surely?). But as I had encountered elsewhere, the getting to the viewing point for the canyon was anything but obvious. Once I ended up taking a very rough track only to find myself smack dab in the middle of a lonely village, only the local goats out and about to greet me. But with some perseverance I found my way – and the view was worth the misturns. And then some!

Called the “Grand Canyon of Arabia”, Wadi Ghul is a cleft of 1000m or more into the mountains, its sides dropping sheerly to the distant bottom. It would be a long, long way to fall. But I wasn’t going to let the precipitous drops deter me from hiking! There is an amazing trail that starts in a tiny village at the rim of the canyon, then snakes along the canyon wall, not much between you and the void. The end of the trail, about a 1.5 hours hike, was an abandoned village, ghostlike, crumbling on its narrow ledge. What a place to have lived! Your life defined by a few terraces hundreds of meters in the sky, only a narrow path to connect you to the rest of the world. Except for a few other hearty hikers, I had the trail and the village to myself. As I sat and ate my lunch, staring deep into the wadi, a curious goat came to keep me company. He seemed to enjoy the bit of biscuit I shared with him. He seemed the sole inhabitant of Sap Bani Khamis.

When I returned to Nizwa, I found that it had come to joyous life. A “souk” for children was set up outside the city walls, a group of Omani men were singing and dancing with swords outside of the main gate (in the parking lot!), everyone was in a holiday mood.

It made me glad that I would be spending another day just in Nizwa, not really planning on doing anything “touristy” (well, going to the fort, but, hey, it was there!). If I hadn’t stayed, I would never have encountered, for example, the men fetching up the “barbecued” lamb.

When Friday arrived, it was with some sadness that I packed the car and began the last leg of my Omani journey. But there is much to draw me back to Oman’s interior, its "heart". I never got to see Jebel Akhdar, the “Breadbasket” of Oman, or got to drive over the mountain pass to Rustaq and Nakhal. There’s never enough time.

But at least I would have one more day in Muscat before heading to destination 2: Qatar.


*I got to see the inside of only one fort, in the end, the one in Nizwa. It seemed all the Omani forts were either closed permanently (some still used as security stations), others were being renovated/refurbished, and others simply were shut for the holidays. But at least I managed to see the interior of one! It would have been really weird to leave Oman without doing so – especially for a history buff.

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