From Fanja to Muscat, through the wadi

Eva's friend recommended this hike - she said that at this time of the year, after rain it is super nice, full of water and everything is green. And boy she was right! It was only Finn and me this time, since Alma had a sleepover - we might not do date-nights, but we do date-hikes :). 

We took both cars, we drove to Al Khoudh (it is great area for easy hiking, picnic, you can read about our previous visit here) where we left one car. Then we drove to Fanja, hiked back to Al Khoudh, took the car back to Fanja to pick up the other car and drove home. Bit complicated, if you are 2 groups, you might switch keys in the middle and spare the back and forth driving. 

The hike itself is very easy - flat mainly, you might need to wade through water. You can climb up to the hillside, or follow the falaj for some time - many opportunities. It is also perfect for younger kids or even toddlers, if you have carrier in case they get tired.

The wadi has a stunning old falaj, running on the side of the hill for kilometers - at the Fanja end there is a huge aqueduct, we have never seen anything like this before. Really special. The falaj is not used and maintained anymore, it is completely broken at places. 

Some of the pools were deep enough for a dip and the water was very clear, bit cold though.

What was not nice is the trash. This is not a tourist spot, locals and people who live here come here mainly to picnic and they clearly do not clean up the trash before they leave. Sometimes they collect the trash in bags and they just leave the bags - really sad. We saw full blown picnic spots with carpets etc. and trash all around.

But trash aside, we had a super nice, easy hike, chatting away and enjoying quality time together!

Hike details: total of 13km, it took 3.5 hours with bit of detour and photo stops. We did not rush :).
Starting point: 23.4897,58.1039, we parked the car here and started to walk towards the wadi.
We left the other car here: 23.558492, 58.110332

The story of the falaj 

After I posted a picture of the aqueduct on Instagram someone wrote to me saying that the falaj has a very interesting story and a lady called Birgit Menshen wrote an article about it. I found the article, it is from 2002 and it says that the falaj is called Falaj Al Zuwayhur, it is from the 18th century and it was never used . It was most likely commissioned by someone high up in society, close to the ruling family or even maybe  directly by the ruler. They wanted to create a big agricultural area - the area around the end of the falaj is cleaned from stone, flattened, ready for cultivation. The falaj was supposed to carry water from Wadi Fanja and the people of that area with gardens were worried that their cut of the water would had be en reduced having a negative effect on their lands. The person who commissioned the falaj agreed with two falaj builders to carry out the work anyway  - but they either were bribed by the people or the commissioner died before the falaj was finished, cannot be confirmed,  but the falaj was built in a way that instead of descending towards the new land, it ascends a few hundred meters after the aqueduct, making the water turn around.  It is indeed a falaj where the water runs back ! Apparently these two builders are heroes in the local folklore. They did leave a beautiful aqueduct behind.