wanderingquilter

In November we took a day trip into the mountains with friends….. I met Alice through the Kuwait Quilters Yahoo Group – and her husband Robert has a passion for the mountains and rocks in general.  He loves the geology of the region and is eager to share it with anyone who will venture out with him.  We took the challenge, and it was an incredible day.

The geology of Oman is diverse and very unique in the world. While in most areas, when the earth’s plates shift and crash into each other, the ocean plate goes underneath and the surface plate raises up to create mountains.  In Oman, more than anywhere else in the world, the ocean plate came on top, giving geologists the best view of what the ocean floor and the Earth’s mantle are made of.  The Hajar Mountains, which parallel the coast near Muscat, are a stunning example of this phenomenon. In Oman, almost every geological age are represented, and fossils as old as 600 million years.The outer shell of the range is a dark coffee brown, and is ophiolite – but as you drive through the mountains to the other side, you pass through rocks from many other periods.

We drove out of Muscat to the west to Barkha, and then headed toward the mountains.  The highways in Oman are second to non… it didn’t feel much like a field trip….. yet.  Our first stop was Nakhl, which is a small town on the edge of the mountain range.  It is an oasis full of palm trees, and not far away in the mountans, there is a hot spring, which we didn’t visit.

Nakhl is dominated by the fort, which is set upon a 200 meter high “mountain” of white crystalline limestone called an Exotic.  This type of rock is thought to have been formed by a submarine volcano, when this part of the world was still on the bottom of the ocean.  Because it is not built on a level surface, the castle seems to be draped over the rock, with multiple levels and innumerable stairs. Sometimes the rock just protrudes into the room or walkway. The fort’s construction dates back to pre Islamic period. Restorations were completed in the 3rd & 10th century. The gate, fence and towers of the fort were built in 1834 A.D.  Restorations were completed in 1990.

One really interesting room was for storing dates.  They are yellow and quite hard when harvested, but as they ripen they get very sugary and juicy.  They were stored in bags on a shelf with ridges so the sugar syrup could flow down into pots to be used to eat, or to boil to pour on the enemies’ heads when they tried to get into the fort.  Hot sugar really burns… I wouldn’t have wanted to be there!

It seemed odd to me that the fort would be down in the midst of the town, with mountains all around, so I asked Robert about it.  He said that there would have been watch towers in the mountains to alert the villagers of enemies on the way.  If they were attacked, the people would have run into the fort, and they would have defended from there.  There were old cannons and replicas inside, as well as pottery and other furnishings t give you an idea of what it would have been like inside.

I’ll go on with the trip another day….. I want you to have just enough photos to entice you to come and visit…..

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Last night, just after I finished writing about the rain storm in December, it began to rain.  Light at first, it increased in force until it was driving down…….almost straight, so I didn’t have to worry about it coming through the windows.  This morning, when Snoopy and I went for our walk, we walked down into the wadi to the soccer field across the street from our house……. guess there won’t be any games there for a day or two.

It rained again this afternoon, and promises to do more tonight and tomorrow…. about 10 cm… not the 23 cm they were forcasting for Old Muscat and Muttrah.  I guess I won’t go to the souq for a few days, until it dries out.  LOL

I decided as I walked that I would show you a bit of what I see in the area.  So, here goes. The plants here are amazing, especially the bougainvillea.  These were just peeking over the fence as we walked through an alley way from our street to the next (no walking in the wadi this morning).  Just down the street, they are crawling up the inside wall and over the fence to entwine themselves into this fan palm.  We have all kinds of palms here – date, coconut and fan, but you also see the occasional small banana tree.  I think this is wonderful… I’d love to have a palm tree in my yard, but unfortunately, it is all paving stones.

Just at the next corner, several people have mixed vegetables in with the flowers in the front beds….. you can see egg plant, tomatoes and squash in these photos.  I met the man who lives here one morning… he is very proud of his vegetables garden. It is very green in Muscat, trees and flowers, and grass, although it’s not a grass like we are used to, but rather a relation to crab grass.  Still, it works here.  It’s hard to remember that we are still on the edge of a desert, and the soil is sand, not loam.

One day I will go around and photograph some of the really incredible yards close by… gigantic houses and trees, trees, trees

The houses have lots of tile and interesting features. Here are some we walked by. I think this one would be a lovely design for quilting…. simplified, of course.

Some intersections don’t have proper drainage, and when it rains, they get quite filled up.  This one is on a busy street….. people were coming rushing up and having to turn around to go another way, or creeping on the sidewalk/driveways of the nearby buildings.By the way, for those of you who’ve never met him, this is Snoopy.

We quite often walk around a cemetery.  Muslim cemeteries are quite different from what we are used to.  There is a wall of varying heights around a large tract of seemingly empty land.  There are a few trees or bushes inside, and in a few scattered places, there seem to be small stones standing up in the earth.  Many don’t even have these markers, as they believe that a burial site should not be marked.  There is a family of dogs living in this one… they often come barking when we pass by… this time they came quite close.  They are lovely dogs, and those who have been adopted say they have the same wonderful personality as the desert dogs in Kuwait.

Here we are getting fairly close to home… this is a walkway… there are lovely trees in it, and notice the tiles on the wall. 

Just around the corner to home now… more flowers, and then the wadi across the street. 

This morning we had an overcast sky and some light showers…. the second rain I’ve experienced since moving to Muscat.  It reminded me of the first rain….. and oh, how different.

It was December 28,; Sue and I headed out early to get to Muttrah Souq before it gt too busy.  She was headed back to Kuwait the next day, and we had things to look for… fabric, trims, silver – and anything else that might catch our fancy.  We got a parking spot not far away and stopped at the ATM for cash.  The sky was pretty black out over the ocean, but it looked like the storm would pass by.  There was a light sprinkle as we headed into the souq…. but we were going to be under cover, so what did it matter?

Up the first side alley we went.. we’d been told there were fabric stores up there.  Past the pashmina sellers…. such pretty shawls they showed us, but we were single-minded in our pursuits.  Funny how important it was to find quilting fabric to take back to Kuwait, which is full of it!  Up high stairs we climbed into a narrow shop sporting African prints…. a bit light, but really interesting colours.  As we were paying for out purchases, we heard a sound like thunder…….. the rain was pounding down on the roof overhead.  Merrily we headed out to find our next stop… and to our amazement, water was tripping down the steps from a narrow side-alley.  Oh-oh… I guess not all of the alleys are covered!  Soon, we were wading up to our ankles in rushing water.  We looked at each other… laughed and rolled up our pant legs.  We stood in the water outside a shop brimming with laces and beads and fancy trims, and Sue bought some lovely silver lace.  On we went to a large fabric shop, where we found some real quilting fabric, and where the shop keeper gave us calendars and a bag to put them in to keep them dry.

As we headed back toward the main path through the souq, we joined many people, in abayas and dishdashas and long pants… all with their skirts held up or their pant legs rolled.  We found that a lot of the shops were actually closing…. with their shop fronts barred, it was quite dark.  we could see now why the shops are so much higher than the paving stones. We headed uphill against the current and into the souq… Ali Baba’s was still open.  This store has wonderful barrels of silver and pendants and rings and coins… and all sorts of treasure hanging from the ceiling and pinned to the walls.  Sue was able to find gifts for everyone on her list, and I found some wonderful things as well….. nice and small and light for packing.

An hour later, we emerged to find the path no longer under water.  Ali Baba’s is on a lesser side alley in the souq, however, and when we reached the main walkway, the water was still racing down toward the sea.  As Muttrah is on the coast with mountains all around, the rain from the whole area was down the street and through the souq.

Sunny skies outside…… we stopped at a nearby coffee shop for a drink before heading on home.

What a shopping trip!  And you know, after that thorough soaking, my sandals looked new for a week.

The houses here in Muscat are interesting.  They are all different, yet seem to have a similarity that binds them together and makes them belong.  It took me a while to figure out what it might be…. I have a few ideas.

First of all, many of the windows have a semi circle on the top… either in the window itself, or molding around the outside. This is our house (just half of it, it’s a duplex).  You find these arches everywhere, on mosques, old buildings, gates and fences.  this house which is close by, has both curved windows and arched moldings –    I’m told that the purple has faded – it used to be much brighter and matched the pink of the bougainvillia.  This type of architecture has been popular for a long time…. just check out the door on the old fort in Qalahat.And speaking of forts leads me to the second feature.   Oman is obsessed with forts… the countryside is covered with them, and it seems that every hill has its watchtower.  Houses often have a “tower” look to them, and often crenelations, like the top of a castle wall.  Even the water tank on the roof.

The other thing I notice on the buildings is the decoration.  Many houses and fences have a row of tiles – often blue and white – near the top.  There are open lattice-type tiles over the drain pipes which go down the outside of the buildings, instead of within the walls, like in Kuwait.  You see arabesque and geometric designs all over… here are just a few I’ve seen and recorded.

This doorway is on an house in old Muttrah, not far from the souq.  It’s a taste of what it used to be like…….

And wait until you see the mosques!

We went this morning to the Police Nursery in Watteya…. they were selling off the extra bedding plants that they didn’t need to beautify the streets.  Too bad we didn’t find out about it earlier… there wasn’t much left, but at the prices – 4 flowering plants in a pot for 1/2 rial… you couldn’t lose.  I got some zinnias to put in pots around the trees in front of my yard, and also on my balcony,  A few petunias, daisies and carnations as well.

Then it was off to find pots and potting soil. Tomorrow morning I will be out transplanting and pruning back my new plants.  Hopefully, they will have time to put on a bit of a show before it gets too hot.  My camera batteries were dead, or I would have had a few photos at the nursery …… will have some of the finished display, I hope.

I’ve gotten in touch with the American Womens’ Group here… just in time, it seems.  Next week, they will have a nursery tour, led by a lady with a lot of experience growing things here….. I already have her book.  They have a tour of the Botanical Gardens in February as well, and I’m signed up for that too.

Lots to learn about growing things here… conditions just aren’t the same as the Canadian Prairies!

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky”  wrote poet John Masefield almost 100 years ago.  He was longing to sail….. I’m no sailor, but I too feel the tug of the ocean.  Funny thing, that, for a Prairie girl, born and bred thousands of miles from any ocean.  Or maybe not so strange……. the flat lands of Saskatchewan can look a lot like the sea, with the wheat and grass waving in the breeze, and the horizon flat and far away.  Whatever the reason, I love the ocean.

I though on Thursday when I left the house that it would be a day of skies…. the view from my step towards the mountains was stunning.  It kept changing as we walked toward the beach…. I couldn’t wait to see what the sky over the ocean was like…….. and then we got to it, and I knew priorities had changed.

Although there was no wind to speak of, the sea was a alive.  Row upon row of foam-crested waves rolled toward the beach.  They reminded me of swathes wheat… not quite white, but tinted golden in the light of the sunrise.

There were quite a few people down there, mostly Omanis.  Thursday is the beginning of our weekend, so families were taking advantage of not having to rush off to work or school. It was only 7:15 am, and it seemed that the expats I usually meet with their dogs were sleeping in.

The waves were about 3 feet high, the spume dancing on the crest before  crashing over onto themselves and the rocks and sand below. The roar was almost deafening.  Poor Snoopy had to stop quite often while I tried to capture it on my camera.  I got some good videos, (and some with me telling him to stand still and wait) but haven’t got the set-up yet to put them on here…….. just for you other Prairie folks.  The tide was quite far out….. when we arrived back at the beginning 2 hours later, it seemed to be in the same spot, so I have a hunch that I caught it at high low tide.

As we walked along, a flight of cormorants settled in the water and began diving… there must have been a school of fish there, although I didn’t wee any come up with his breakfast while we watched.

The beach was quite smooth and mostly shell free…….. I did find a few interesting ones though.  The track of the water receding around rocks made interesting patterns in the sand, contrasting the dark brown with that made mostly of crushed shell.

In some areas the sand shelf deposited by the stormy seas of late December is being eroded by the waves, and shells and rocks stick out at odd angles…… you can see layers of sand and shell – it gives you first hand evidence of how layers of sedimentary rock are formed.

One last photo from the shore that morning………