10th September, 1990
At the entrance to the village of Misfat al Ibriyeen, perched high up a hillside, we salaamed the old men in white dishdasha who chatted quietly in the shade. They gestured for us to go on into the village through its ancient archway. An all-embracing sense of timelessness wafted through the tidy alleys between reddish adobe terraced houses where wary cats disappeared silently into metal doors engraved with flowers. Clay water pots, framed in small black windows, caught the sunlight. Three girls in bright robes returning from the well, plastic bowls of water balanced on their heads, giggled coyly.
In the shaded sabla, or meeting place, several elders, with long white beards, several of them one-eyes and other with severe cataracts, chatted in murmurs. One of them waved us on towards a gorge vibrant with bird-song where, under lofty date palms, the gurgling of the falaj water canals was punctuated with the periodic plop of contented frogs. The afternoon air was heavy with the bitter-sweet scent of limes laid out to dry in the sun.
From Freedom of the Skies
Glimpses of the journey:
- Around the world
- Crossing the Atlantic
- Saint Louis, Senegal
- Bubaque, Guiné-Bissau
- Timbuktu, Mali
- Cottars’ Camp, Kenya
- Virungas National Park, Zaire
- Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe
- Sossusvlei, Namíbia
- Lumbo, Mozambique
- Antananarivo Madagascar
- Adis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Misfat, Omã
- Jaipur, India
- Himalaia, Nepal
- Mae Hong Son, Thailand
- Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia
- Borobodur, Java, Indonesia
- Baliem Valley, Irian Jaya
- Gimbat, Australia
- Munda, New Georgia, Solomon Islands
- Hurricane in Apia, Western Samoa
- Anaa, Tuamotu, Polynesia
- Easter Island, Chile
- Crossing the Andes, Chile-Argentina
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
