One bad turn and we're ambushed by an legion of Arabian goats.
It was a most unusual destination for both Jose and myself. Both of our guidebooks touted this remote mountain village as "medieval" or even "stone age," promising of an idyllic hamlet where locals carried on a lost lifestyle from the Middle Ages or beyond.
Misfah. Misfat. Misfah al Abriyeen. Misfat al Abryeen. Or perhaps Abreyeen or Abriyyin or even Abreen. While there seemed to be no consistent Romanization of the name even on the official road signs, the direction was clear enough -- take the winding mountain road into the heights of Jebel Shams and locate the village at the dead end.
No matter how you spell it, the meaning is the same -- it's the home of the Al Abri tribe in this secluded corner of Central Oman, overhanging a sheer cliff on the rugged plateau of the Hajar Mountains. For centuries it's entirely cut off from the rest of the world, until a couple decades ago when a motor road finally established its link with modern Oman.
There's no town gate. There's no ticket booth. There're no signs. You just park your car at the dead-end road in front of the village, and walk through one of the ancient rock arches to time-travel back to the 12th Century.
This is an ancient land that predates history and script, let alone the nation of Oman or even Islam. The 4500-year-old beehive tombs of Bat are in a region to the northwest, and standing guard just above the village is a ruined fort from the old Persian Empire.
Centuries of geographic isolation has fostered a closed society with its own ancestral customs and mentality, similar in theory to Wuyuan Shicheng in China or Shirakawago in Central Japan. But Misfah has only opened up to the outside world in this current generation, and at the time of our visit there was absolutely no commercial activity and seemingly no desire to welcome any form of tourism. I hear that this has since changed with the opening of the first guesthouse, though thankfully the village is probably decades from mass tourism and gentrification.
We've had a glimpse of Omani tribal culture at the Bedouin goat auction in Nizwa, but medieval Misfah was at a totally different level. Whereas the people of Nizwa were generous with smiles, in Misfah we could sense watchful eyes from a distance. As travelers sometimes we can feel it when the locals don't even want to engage in an exchange of "Salam"; this was such an instance.
Gingerly we trod the narrow and claustrophobic alleys while mindfully avoiding disrupting the daily routines of the villagers and especially the local women. Painted stripes of yellow, white and red marked a "suggested" path for visitors, intended less as guidance and more as deterrence against violations of privacy and taboo.
This is your classic mountain stronghold of the Middle Ages, made self-sufficient by a system of ancient underground Falaj which channeled life-giving water to the village and its livelihood of date palms and pomegranates. To modern day visitors like us the canals provided refreshments under the 40-degrees climate, though we had to be extra cautious to avoid the forbidden areas where the local women would wash clothes and carry out their daily chores.
The moment we turned back from the Falaj and stepped into the rocky outcrop at the rear of the village ... Whoa! ... we're entirely surrounded by this flock of village guardians! And just as we established that we weren't in danger of being edged off the cliff side ...
... a little girl started yelling and hurling stones at us two camera-toting outsiders, and with alarming accuracy. That's when I had to advise Jose to pack away the camera out of respect for the locals and work on our diplomatic skills. The girl eventually stopped and retreated inside and we resumed photographing her flock.
To be honest I'm not entirely convinced by general claims of Misfah as an exhibit of untouched medieval life as promised by many of the guidebooks, Lonely Planet and Rough Guide among them. While timeless (and occasionally antagonistic) customs still persist, many houses have been modernized into ugly concrete complexes and the overall visual impact couldn't quite match nearby Al Hamra in my opinion.
On the way down we stopped for a panoramic view over the desert plains of Ad Dakhiliyah. This was the most rewarding day of sightseeing in my entire Middle East trip, covering Nizwa, Tanuf, Al Hamra, Misfah plus the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Falaj Daris and the Fort of Bahla, all in 12 hours. We would return to Nizwa for dinner and overnight stay, still stoked about our favorite photos at Al Hamra earlier in the day. At this point we had no idea that we would soon discover our favorite spot in Oman the next morning, at the deserted ancient oasis of Manah.
