| canyon_settlements.jpg |
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Description:
View from the top of Jabal Harim (the mountain of women) obscured by heavy dust-laden atmosphere. The landscape is scarred by canyons. A few settlements perch on the plateaux. Height approximately 1800m |
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| driver.jpg |
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Description:
My mountain driver, and please forgive me, I can't remember his name. He had been working for Khasab Travel and Tours for 12 years or more. When he goes on leave to India, he drives buses to give him something to do. Just for a change! |
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| hermit_dwelling.jpg |
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Description:
An old man lived here with his goats all his life until he died last year (2003). He was over 90, but wouldn't leave this stone hut on this precarious rock ledge. He became unwell and his relatives took him to hospital in Khasab. |
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| high_altitude_raingauge.jpg |
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Description:
When the Public Authority for Water Resources was active, an American hydrogeologist called Don Davison set up a series of high altitude rain gauges to collect data for water resource modelling. I don't know if the data continues to be collected. |
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| isolated_house.jpg |
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Description:
At intervals along the road up the jabal, you can see small dwellings tucked on to ledges. They are all invariably served by mains electicity, but have to fetch water from roadside water tanks filled by the municipality/governorate. |
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| jabal_road.jpg |
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Description:
Looking north down the valley towards Khasab. |
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| khasab_recharge_dam.jpg |
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Description:
This recharge dam 8 km upstream from Khasab town is designed to calm flood waters and encourage infiltration into the underlying aquifer. It also protects the town from destructive floods. |
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| khasab_recharge_dam_behind.jpg |
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Description:
No winter rain this season. The dam basin has begun to silt up. Looking up valley from dam. |
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| khawr_najid.jpg |
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Description:
Khor (or Khawr) Najid opens out on the western side of the rocky Musandam peninsula. View marred by heavy dust haze. |
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| old_dwellings.jpg |
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Description:
The traditional houses of Musandam appear primitive and are built of stone. These dwellings are said to be hundreds of years old, but I can find no verification. They have long been deserted. Others up the valley are still inhabited. |
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| old_irrigated_terraces.jpg |
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Description:
Closer inspection of settlements show that they probably survived originally on subsistence farming. Any runoff water was carefully harvested behind stone walls on which the soil had been terraced. No visible agriculture now. |
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| rock_pinnacle.jpg |
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Description:
A natural rock formation |
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