Jabal Akhdar.  12/8/07.

            Anna had originally made our hotel reservation for two nights.  But she decided yesterday she wanted to stay a third night.  She’s not ready to face the huge mountain of work waiting for her at home, plus she wants to put off thinking about me leaving in a week.  We’ve both adjusted to living far apart and seeing each other only once a year or so.  It does no good whatsoever to mope about it.  But still, there are moments of pain.  We stayed up late into the night talking about our lives, our dreams for the future, children, marriage, work.  Precious hours like these make the long separations easier to bear.

            There is a cutoff up to a mountain called Jabal Akhdar (Green Mountain) just before the hotel.  Anna, Herschel, and Aria spent a night at a hotel on the top of the mountain last spring, but Herschel was ill, and Aria got carsick on the drive, so it wasn’t much fun.  Anna thought I might enjoy seeing the villages high up the mountain, but is dubious about taking Aria.  She asked around yesterday to see if she could find a group tour I could join.  The road is very steep, requiring 4-wheel drive.  Plus, you need a permit unless you go with a guide.

            Anna couldn’t locate a group tour, but the hotel offered to arrange a driver for us.  Anna took some time to think it over.  I didn’t push because traveling with a miserable toddler is no fun.  Aria is usually an excellent traveler—she’s been all over the world in her three years—but I understand about curvy roads and small tummies.  However, I’ve envisioned myself on a mountain in Oman ever since my last trip and keep my fingers crossed.

            Anna decides it’s silly to miss the mountain since it’s so close, and she hires a guide.  He’s supposed to pick us up at the hotel at 9:30, but arrives early.  We check out quickly and throw our stuff in the car.  We exchange the usual pleasantries with Yakoob, our guide, as we start up the mountain.

            There is a police checkpoint at the base of the mountain manned by guys, some wearing purple khaki and some wearing orange.  They keep track of who’s going up and where the visitors are from.  I wonder if there’s a military base on the mountain (there is), and if we will also be stopped coming down (we aren’t).

            The road is practically new.  Yakoob tells us there was only a gravel road until recently.  Can’t even imagine what that was like; I’ve rarely experienced such a steep incline.  Yakoob asks me about my husband and children.  In turn, I inquire about his family.  He has nine children, college-aged to toddler.  He looks really young to have such a large family, but he tells us he married at sixteen and is now in his forties.  He lives in a village at the base of the mountain.

            In Oman, the word “village” refers to a small town.  There are many old villages in Oman, with tightly-packed dwellings made of mud and stone.  Even these usually have electricity now.  However, more and more of the rural Omanis are abandoning the old villages for modern housing developments.  Sad for romantic tourists.  But if I had a choice between living in a small mud box without running water or a large new house, I know which I’d choose.  The way of life in Oman is changing very rapidly, especially in the countryside.  Much of the new construction is funded by the government.  So—Yakoob’s “village” is a modern town.  If you removed the Arabic signage and mosques, you could plop it down in Arizona without anyone thinking it odd.

            It takes about a half-hour to reach the hotel at the top of the mountain.  No upset tummy mishaps, but we decide to stop, use the restroom, and walk around a bit to settle our stomachs.  It’s cooler up here (elevation maybe 7,000 feet?), but still quite warm.

            Jabal Akhdar may mean “green mountain”, but it’s as brown as all the other mountains in this part of Oman.  However the foliage is more varied, and the view is rugged and stunning.  Off to the right is a canyon with several old villages hanging on cliffs.  The people up here farm terraced gardens, growing peaches, pomegranates, roses (used to flavor coffee and other foods), and a variety of vegetables in small rectangular plots.  They sell their produce at the Nizwa souk.

Yakoob tells us that if we’d like to walk through the nearest village, he’ll meet us with the car on the far side.  The trail is well-marked, so we quickly agree.  It’s nice to see bright green growing things.  We follow a falaj flowing with water past a pond.  Large trees grow in crevasses, including several walnuts.  A couple works in their garden, weeding with long knives.  Cute kids pop out and greet us shyly.  It must be odd to have tourists hiking through your village, but they seem used to it.  Very pleasant walk with a wide view of canyon and mountain, though at Aria’s slow pace, it takes considerably longer than the half hour Yakoob had predicted.

Yakoob drives us around the lip of the canyon, pointing out a military base and several new housing developments.  Apparently this part of Oman was at war with the government in Muscat in the 1970s. Yakoob tells us the old villages are deserted or soon will be.  Anna asks if anyone may build a house on the mountain.  “No,” he explains in choppy English, “you must be born on mountain.  Even I, my grandparents lived in village on mountain, but government not give even me land.  I live in village at bottom.”  We stop briefly at the edge of a small bowl-like valley.  A new town is growing in the bowl; machinery buzzes, grinds, and hums.

            We continue around the canyon.  Yakoob pulls over, and we see a deserted village down a long stone stairway on the opposite side of a dry wadi.  Even though it hasn’t been abandoned all that long, it looks a lot like an Indian cliff dwelling in the American West.  We decide to explore.  Yakoob tells us there are 215 stairs, and I’m a bit nervous about the climb out with Aria.

            We easily manage the stairs down, but then have to climb over rough wadi rocks to get to the village.  Anna tells me to go ahead, that she’ll follow more slowly with Aria.  It’s pretty in the wadi; some of the trees are winter bare, but others have lovely yellow fall foliage.

            I climb around the village carefully, testing each step, because sections have caved in.  It’s hard getting from one room to another—not at all obvious how the villagers accessed the dwellings.  Ladders?  Perhaps there used to be more defined paths from the top?  I wonder how often the villagers traveled to the valley a hundred years ago, or even twenty years ago before the paved road was built.  It must be at least thirty miles of steep, rocky terrain to Nizwa.  Could donkeys negotiate the mountain paths?

            I return to the wadi, but can’t find Anna and Aria.  Finally I hear them a little further down the wadi.  Anna points out a room they have found that is still furnished.  It takes me a minute to figure out the rusted metal latch on the small wooden door.  The whitewashed room is larger than most.  There are Oriental carpets on the floor and a stack of straw mats in a corner.  A large framed picture hangs on the wall next to a shrine-like plaster insert.  I realize it’s a photo of the Ka’bah in Mecca surrounded by hundreds of pilgrims.  A mud wasp’s nest is attached to a corner of the dusty photo.  An Arabic book rests on a carved wooden book-holder on the floor.  Various niches contain more books, ornaments, and a large amber glass pitcher.  It’s dark and cool inside.  The windows are small and the walls are two feet thick.  Yakoob later tells me the village has been abandoned for about twelve years.  I’m amazed tourists haven’t stolen the left-behind furnishings.

            To my surprise and relief, Aria climbs out of the wadi and up all the high steps without being carried.  If anything, I’m having a harder time—should have worn my Doc Martins instead of cheap sandals.

            Anna wants to get some cold drinks before we drive back down Jabal Akhdar.  There are few stores on the mountain—the residents must drive to Nizwa to shop. Since it’s nearly 1:00 when nearly everything in Oman shuts for the afternoon, it takes Yakoob several tries to find a small restaurant that is still open.

            We drive down the mountain mostly in silence.  Anna does ask Yakoob if his children will also marry young and have large families.  He replies that times have changed.  Life has become much more expensive here.  When he was young, boys married early but continued to live with their wives and children in their father’s house.  Now couples are expected to have college training, steady jobs, and their own house before they marry.  Health care and education are free for Omanis, but Yakoob worries that may not always be the case.  People are beginning to think twice before having so many children.  Old customs are being abandoned. 

            I’m not surprised.  I have noticed many changes in the three years since I was last here.  A small example:  last trip I saw many signs with bizarre English spelling, but this trip hardly any.  There are more modern shops.  Anna showed me Oman’s first large covered parking garage adjoining a mall as sophisticated as any you’d find in the States.  Freeways and new buildings are going up everywhere.  The interior feels much less primitive.  The Bedouins carry cell phones!  For a country that was basically medieval in 1970, the rate of change is mind-boggling.

            Yakoob drops us off at the Golden Tulip.  We decide to use the restroom in the lobby before heading back to Muscat.  To our delight, Christmas decorations have sprung up everywhere while we were on the mountain.  Funny!  I’m grateful for a thought-provoking as well as beautiful day.