Jabel Zalagh

The hamaam did not happen, but I did meet up with some of the other teachers for a girly movie.

Saturday, Ethan, the other math teacher, and I hiked Mt. Zalagh, just north of the Medina. It was great to have a mountain (or at least an exciting hill) within walking distance of the city. We walked down through the medina and out over farm fields and empty land. The summer has not been kind to the ground; the top layer of mud dried and cracked, so walking on it was like being on a thin layer of ice that continually cracked under every step. We saw the coolest selection of vicious plants - tall mean white plants that looked like paper barbed wire, and bright purple thistles, whose flowers lived despite the rest of the plant having shriveled and browned in the heat, and large fan ferns that looked like they could be functional fans, but had tiny thorns along the stalks.

Also saw tons of cool lizards, a cave with some big white grubs, and largish songbirds with distinctive white flags on the underside of their wings, which I have still not managed to key out.

We ran into a little boy on a donkey while we were crossing the only thing that resembled a stream. Ethan was attempting to jump rocks that had been spaced a bit too far apart, and the boy jumped off the donkey, into the stream, and pulled a few more rocks into place. He offered us donkey rides and followed us, chatting in Arabic, until Ethan told him that we lived in the city and were actually not tourists. The boy pointed out his home, and rode off.

We saw several houses that looked like well-packed haystacks, with a hole hollowed out of one end. The king enacted a program to get electricity to all houses, but many of the people are too poor to afford it, so the silent lines come right to their houses, but no power goes through that part of the grid.

Several groups of children were out in the open dry fields, playing soccer or just clustering in the shade. They all wanted to talk to us, to tell us not to go up the mountain because the Djin that live in the wilderness would get us.

We decided to risk the Djin.

The last bit of the hike got much steeper, to the point of using hands to scramble, at one point along a ridge that was left when a sort of quarry was carved away on either side. We scrambled over rocks, and saw lots more cool lizards and big beetles. After only two false summits, we were rewarded - not by a summit plate - but by a big metal structure with four legs, maybe 20 feet tall, which is apparently what marks the summit here. We climbed it. Ethan's taller than me. I got stuck on top.




The view was amazing: we could see about 30-40 miles before the sun-kissed land disappeared into a haze of sand and clouds. Our city looked so ancient and secretive, and the golden hills were dotted with organized grids of olive trees.

And both of our cameras were dead.

We sat to rest on the summit. Ethan did some kakuro, which is awesome because his book has puzzles he's finished from all the interesting places he's been, and I did some tai chi on the mountaintop, simply because I could. (I felt pretty cool.)

We were thirsty on the way down, and went much faster despite trying a new route. We got back to the medina just in time to buy food and get home for F'tour. I F'toured with Candace and Suzanne, who have said that we'll have to take a trip up Zalagh another weekend. I'm holding you to that, girls!