Wadi Damm - beyond the pools

Wadi Damm is most famous for its beautiful fern adorned pools (you can read about all the hiking we did there here), but it has plenty to to offer beyond the hiking. Beautiful villages, lush green terraces, mud brick ruins and the beehive tombs.

The beehive tombs

There are multiple sites in the area but the most photographic has to be the one at Al Ayn - the ancient (around 5000 years old)  tombs with Jebel Misht (misht means comb) in the background is just stunning. It is also a UNESCO world heritage site:

"The protohistory archaeological complex of Bat, al-Khutm and al-Ayn represents one of the most complete and well preserved ensembles of settlements and necropolises from the 3rd millennium BCE worldwide. The core site is a part of the modern village of Bat, in the Wadi Sharsah approximately 24 kilometres east of the city of Ibri, in the Al-Dhahira Governorate of north-western Oman. Further extensions of the site of Bat are represented by the monumental tower at al-Khutm and by the necropolis at al-Ayn. Together, monumental towers, rural settlements, irrigation systems for agriculture, and necropolises embedded in a fossilized Bronze Age landscape, form a unique example of cultural relics in an exceptional state of preservation."

The ruins at Bat might be historically more important, but they are ruins. The structures at Al Ayn on the other hand are in  much better condition and the surrounding is just unbeatable, so we visited these.

Mountain villages

There are many hidden gems, we did not have time to visit all but we did drive to Sint and Sant - Sant was particularly pretty with the terraces. It also seemed there are a few good hiking options. We did walk to the village and if we had more time, would had loved to explore the plantations.

Ibri

There are ton of things to see in Ibri and to do the wadi and the town in a proper way, you need 3 days. We did not have so we missed Ibri this time, but will be back!

Total time: you can drive as little or much around as you wish. The walk to the tombs only took 20min
Location: scroll down for the map

Kids: perfect for toddlers
Car: the wadi is paved, salon car is ok

First glimpse of Jabal Misht...

... and the beehive tombs

Sant

Sint