Wild Blue Yonder
Alhamdulillah, I finally went out for a day trip after buying my car, which was one of the primary reasons I bought it.
We drove 108 km (67.5 miles) east from K-Town to the Azraq Wetlands Reserve. This marshy area was used by humans for the past 250 millennia and was almost destroyed to nothing within the past 30 years. All that remains is a walk through a bog that has mostly dried up where you can see some small fish and an occasional frog. There is also one good bird-sighting hut that overlooks a pool. We saw a bunch of ducks and something that looked like a heron or an egret, as well as a number of smaller birds. The site of the fish made me hungry. The best thing about walking through the wetlands reserve was that the smell of vegetation and water reminded me of my hometown of Richmond, BC, where I would go jogging around a bog when weather permitted.
After finishing up at the reserve, I asked the receptionist about other sites in Al-Azraq. She told me that the Shaumari Reserve was closed for maintenance but I could check out the Azraq Fort. At the fort, we bought tickets that allowed us to see three desert castles: Al-Azraq, `Amra, and Harrana. Al-Azraq Fort was built by the Romans and re-built by the Muslims during the Crusades. With all its corridors and rooms, the place would make an excellent site for a small paintball tournament. `Amra and Harrana are among a series of desert castles built by the Umayyads but scholars still aren't sure what their purpose was. The strangest thing about Qusayr `Amra (lit. "The little castle of `Amra") is the painting on the roof of one of its domes: people are very lightly dressed. This definitely does not seem characteristic of Islamic paintings, let alone Umayyad-era work. Outside the diminutive castle is a well. I dropped a rock in it and it took about 2.7 seconds to reach the bottom, meaning the well is probably around 35 metres deep. Scattered outside the castle are many smooth rocks with very clearly delineated layers. The Harrana castle was possibly used as an inn, and is definitely a great place for a game of hide and seek. My son came looking for me and when I grabbed him in the dark chamber, he had a delightfully terrified look on his face.
We drove 108 km (67.5 miles) east from K-Town to the Azraq Wetlands Reserve. This marshy area was used by humans for the past 250 millennia and was almost destroyed to nothing within the past 30 years. All that remains is a walk through a bog that has mostly dried up where you can see some small fish and an occasional frog. There is also one good bird-sighting hut that overlooks a pool. We saw a bunch of ducks and something that looked like a heron or an egret, as well as a number of smaller birds. The site of the fish made me hungry. The best thing about walking through the wetlands reserve was that the smell of vegetation and water reminded me of my hometown of Richmond, BC, where I would go jogging around a bog when weather permitted.
After finishing up at the reserve, I asked the receptionist about other sites in Al-Azraq. She told me that the Shaumari Reserve was closed for maintenance but I could check out the Azraq Fort. At the fort, we bought tickets that allowed us to see three desert castles: Al-Azraq, `Amra, and Harrana. Al-Azraq Fort was built by the Romans and re-built by the Muslims during the Crusades. With all its corridors and rooms, the place would make an excellent site for a small paintball tournament. `Amra and Harrana are among a series of desert castles built by the Umayyads but scholars still aren't sure what their purpose was. The strangest thing about Qusayr `Amra (lit. "The little castle of `Amra") is the painting on the roof of one of its domes: people are very lightly dressed. This definitely does not seem characteristic of Islamic paintings, let alone Umayyad-era work. Outside the diminutive castle is a well. I dropped a rock in it and it took about 2.7 seconds to reach the bottom, meaning the well is probably around 35 metres deep. Scattered outside the castle are many smooth rocks with very clearly delineated layers. The Harrana castle was possibly used as an inn, and is definitely a great place for a game of hide and seek. My son came looking for me and when I grabbed him in the dark chamber, he had a delightfully terrified look on his face.
posted by Flicken @ 7:05 AM
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