Nizwa

Entrace to the old
walled city of Nizwa.











Inside walled
city of Nizwa.







View of the gold mosque dome
through one of the cannon
holes in the fort tower.







View of the more modern
city of Nizwa from fort
tower.






Part of the craft souq
outside the fort. This
shop is selling pottery.






Rod with some of the
produce for sale at the
goat souq.





Today we went for a trip to Nizwa which is about 170km inland from Muscat. The scenery on the way there never changed. It was 170km of large rugged mountains with not a single tree on them. We passed through a few small towns. We could tell they were towns because they were the only patches of green. All the towns are surrounded by date palms. It is the only sort of tree we have seen in the last 2 weeks. The roads are very good here and it was a dual highway all the way. Nizwa is a reasonable size town wth everything you need. The main attraction is the Nizwa fort tower and the walled city. We're not sure how old it is but it looks pretty old. It was very impressive. Within the large solid walls is a maze of rooms, stairs and what would have been shops. It was a fully contained city. The buildings are very beautiful and solid! All the walls are about 2 foot thick. All the ceilings of the rooms and walkways are lined with fancy timber. It was very impressive. At the centre of the fort is a tower. It would probably only be about 4 stories high but it is still by far the tallest thing in Nizwa. We got a fantastic view of all the surroundings from up there (well Carrie did anyway....Rod refused to climb all 3 sets of stairs to see the view in all directions).
Surrounding the walls and the fort is a series of souqs (markets). There was a vegetable souq, fish souq, gold souq, textile souq, pottery souq, spice souq and goat souq. There were plenty of interesting smells walking through there.
It was in Nizwa that we saw our first camel. It was tied in the back of a ute. We also saw a guy shove two live goats into the back of a small daewoo. We're guessing he is going to be having goat for this end of Ramadan feast!