Rain everywhere and when not it is a bit misty and humid. Watching the men in their disdashia’s and the women in their abbaya’s both wearing the open toes sandals is not an issue. They are quite pleased as we would be to when you see the natural habitat nature has provided them. They love the rains as along as it is not enough to create flooding thru the wadi’s. This morning we visited the the recently reconstructed Nazia Fort, it is like walking thru a maze. So many rooms and all interconnected one one way or another. I especially liked the “date” room. Here they stored bags of dates, one layed on top of the other..the sole purpose being to drain the oil from the dates, which ran down into the pots set below. The oil was heated then used to pour down from the tower onto the oncoming attackers. Creative we thought!
From here we went to the “date”souk. 40 varieties..we selected two. The sweetest and less sweet. Each a bit different in color, texture and taste. Sweetest being used for deserts of course. Visited the morning souk for frankincense and to check out the Khanjar, the traditional daggar the men wear around their waist (this is attached to a very elaborate decorative leather belt stitched with silver/gold threads). In former days men did not leave their homes without being armed with their Khanjar. I think David was hoping to convince Roger to come home with one. Leslie found one of the old traditional belts she was quite happy with.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside café, which turned out to be more of a “hubbly bubbly” center for the men. Which Dave and Roger were offered! The proprietress was Egpytian, she appeared out of no leading us to a table with rain dripping down from the canvas awnings and motioned us to sit at this table and we found when sitting down our feet rested in puddles of water. After this we knew we had to stay to see what the lunch would be. Actually it was okay..shisk ka bob, typical salad of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, humus and arab bread...who could trade such an experience!
From here we went to the “date”souk. 40 varieties..we selected two. The sweetest and less sweet. Each a bit different in color, texture and taste. Sweetest being used for deserts of course. Visited the morning souk for frankincense and to check out the Khanjar, the traditional daggar the men wear around their waist (this is attached to a very elaborate decorative leather belt stitched with silver/gold threads). In former days men did not leave their homes without being armed with their Khanjar. I think David was hoping to convince Roger to come home with one. Leslie found one of the old traditional belts she was quite happy with.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside café, which turned out to be more of a “hubbly bubbly” center for the men. Which Dave and Roger were offered! The proprietress was Egpytian, she appeared out of no leading us to a table with rain dripping down from the canvas awnings and motioned us to sit at this table and we found when sitting down our feet rested in puddles of water. After this we knew we had to stay to see what the lunch would be. Actually it was okay..shisk ka bob, typical salad of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, humus and arab bread...who could trade such an experience!
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