We had an appointment to get fuel at 1000. A truck was coming out to the edge of the sea wall, and we would tie up to the sea wall to take on fuel. At 1100, we found out that the truck pump had a problem and that they would not be coming until around 1900 (7:00pm). We were happy that we had enough time to go into town and get some sightseeing in. Today there was no haze, and the mountains stood out clearly in the background. The mountains look a lot like Southern California and Baja California, almost looking more like a painting than real.

Our first stop was lunch, at a place called Jarash. We were seated in a large patio area in front. There were many men, but not a single woman in the restaurant, which made us wonder if it was OK for Christi to be there. None of the other patrons or waiters seemed to be bothered by her presence. On the menu, in between “shwarmas” and “main courses” was”hookahs”. Hookahs are very large water pipes, and the tobacco is flavored. Different flavors listed on the menu included apple, grape, rose, mint, strawberry, as well as flavors we have never heard of. Smoking the hookah is an Arab custom, primarily for males. We knew lots of restaurants offered hookahs to customers, we just found it funny that hookahs are on the menu in and amongst the food. Several people were smoking hookahs near us, and surprisingly, the scent was pleasant and light, not at all offensive like cigarette smoke normally is to us.

The next stop was to the souq (market place). The souq is a square with a maze of narrow sidewalks and small buildings that house a series of small stores. Since it was siesta time, only a handful of shops were open, but it looked like most all of them sell the same things. There are a lot of traditional knives, scarves, tea sets, and leather products. But most of all, there are lots of perfumes. Not the bottles like you buy in a department store, the real stuff. Pure sandalwoods and rosewoods and many of the other fragrances that get blended together and watered down into the perfumes you buy in the store. You can even get the scented powders perfume is made from so you can make your own. And, of course, there was a huge variety of beautiful crystal perfume bottles in assorted sizes and shapes. Every vendor doused us with scents, and it didn’t take long before we couldn’t keep them straight anymore. And, of course, there were also frankincense vendors.

The next stop was to the Al-Baleed archeological site and accompanying Frankincenseland museums, located on the east edge of town. We were expecting something small, so we were pretty darn surprised when we got there to find a very large dig site where they are trying to re-construct the ancient city of Al-Baleed, also called Zafar, along with two very nice museums. On the opposite side of the road are vast amounts of farmland, stretching much farther than the length of the historical site.

We were drawn towards the dig site immediately, but were ushered to the museum portion first by the military personnel stationed there. The museums are side by side. The first is the maritime museum. It is small, but very well put together. There are displays of various ships used throughout the years for war, commerce and fishing. There are displays of early navigational equipment. There was an ancient globe on display. They had managed to figure out the size and shape of the earth, and the globe mapped out the portion of the world they knew fairly accurately, which included most of Europe, parts of Asia and parts of Africa. But the other half of the globe was just black. There was also a celestial globe that was very accurate.

The next museum is a history museum. This one is bigger, but given the number of years it covers, is really quite small. One of the first displays is of the water channeling system that is thought to be the oldest in the world. They would find a well and dig underground tunnels to the town for drinking water and crop irrigation. If the water was in a hill, they built aqueducts to carry the water over the valleys. Once the water got to the city, it became an open canal through town. At the edge of town, the canals would split into many directions to irrigate crops planted there. It is quite impressive. The Romans probably learned a few things from the Omani’s before undertaking their own aqueduct systems.

There are quite a few displays of the ancient artifacts that have been found in Oman. There is an exhibit on the different types of frankincense, on the country’s conversion to Islam, on the traditional architectural style that is still followed today, highlights in the country’s history, and on some of the recent achievements within the country. We perused the arts and crafts center and looked at some of the local traditional art. They seem to favor large jewelry. Here is a shot of the entranceway into the courtyard. It gives you a good sense of the architectural style of the region.

Then we headed over to the dig site. We crossed a bridge over the man made canal we had just read about, into the ruins. The town is believed to have been started around 2,000 BC, and was a prosperous port and trading center, believed to be the dominant center for East African, Indian and Chinese trade in its heyday, at least through the 10th century AD. Shifting economic, political and economic conditions led to its slow demise.

It looks like archeologists have been working on this site for a number of years now. The most put together building of all is a very large mosque. The layout of it is unmistakable as you move from one clearly defined room to another. Next to it is a large citadel, with an impressive staircase up to the top, but once on top, the different rooms are not as obvious. There are at least a dozen more buildings, most of them small mosques, and most with just a foundation and a small amount of exterior wall. One mosque even has a cemetery around it, and the graves are obvious. A portion of the fortress wall surrounding the city has been found, as well. It was probably a nice town in its prime, with the charming canal, stunning views of the ocean, and fertile agricultural fields. The first picture is of us standing on the citadel, with the grand mosque and ocean in the background. The second one is the citadel.

We had a few minutes to kill before we had to be back for our fuel appointment, so we drove around aimlessly. The east end of town is primarily farmland, with a few buildings here and there and some roads intersecting the farms. The vast area of farmland surrounding the city of Al-Baleed is probably much the same as it was 4,000 years ago. All the farmland has a concrete wall around it, so it was hard to see what they grow. We could see lots of coconut palms (and possibly date palms), bananas and papaya trees growing high up over the walls.

We were back to Kosmos by 1815, only to find out that the fuel truck wouldn’t be coming until tomorrow. That was no real surprise. With as much fuel as we need, we’d likely be pumping fuel for hours. Who wants to pump fuel late into the night? [89]