I spent Thursday driving through the mountains to Nizwa, a very old town full of really nice folks. The mountains were so beautiful, I kept pulling over to take pictures, then I would see houses pop up out of nowhere and have to pull over and take pictures of those. Palm trees lined the road for a while, then it would be nothing except mountains. The drive was great.

I checked out the Nizwa fort, which has been there for 600 or so years. It's huge - several city blocks square. It was in this fort that I visited the Souq (suuk), or market. Think huge craft fair plus farmers market plus livestock sale. It was everything all rolled into one, with at least a couple hundred vendors. The ones I interacted with were very nice and patient with me and wanted to know where I was from. A couple of them had been to the states and wanted to tell me of their visits.