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DISCOVER THE MOUNTAIN

featuring the path between QANTAB and BANDER JISSA

“All it takes is half an hour and a
willingness. The rest is easy”

We are 300m above the city, perched on a limestone peak looking down on the village of Qantab below us on the left, and the bays of Bander Jissa spread over the right. Half an hour is all it takes to get away from the crowds that throng the public beaches here, a mass that starts trickling in on Thursday afternoons and swells into a
traffic jam by the first evening of the weekend.

But unknown to most, there is a hiking path that starts where the ruins end, just before the last lip of sand on the left of the beach. This is where you will start, up the track that is difficult to spot unless you know it’s there. One pointer might be the last bit of ruined wall just opposite, the slab that now has a skull and various other graffiti scratched into its gypsum façade.

Barely a handful of metres up and you will find the first sunshade, usually with the remnants of whoever lit the last barbeque fire or dropped the last can. You will be walking uphill, parallel to the beach just under you to your right. A few metres above, the path seems to have been washed away by the rains – during Gonu perhaps – and while the going is easy, you must take care to rejoin it and not stray too far off. What you should do is keep going uphill in a relatively straight line. You’ll probably just stumble upon the next section anyway, where it branches off to a beach on the right (also a great destination for an early morning or evening) and the peaks ahead, slightly to the left.

Once you hit the next phase of pathway all you have to do is follow it. You have about half an hour of uphill climb in front of you. It isn’t difficult terrain, but it isn’t short either and you’ll have to deal with the heat. Experienced walkers will break into a sweat but nothing worse. Others can take a few breaks at the wooden bench they will find along the way, and enjoy the views of the sea to the right. The higher you go, the more you perspire, the better it gets. Once on the ridges that will take you to the furthest peak, you’re likely to be bang in the middle of a current of wind flowing between the mountains on your left and sea to your right. The air gets less muggy, too, and the ground smoothens.

You might have to force yourself over the last bit, but we promise it’s worth it. The view from the last ridge is absolutely fantastic, with Qantab village just below, the hills of al Bustan ahead, the range that leads to the Yitti road and Quriyat to your left, sea to your right, Bander Jissa behind you. And you’re at the centre of it all.

There are a couple of things that you will find on that windy edge: a little stone room open to the sea, with a roof overhead and a small bench inside, and an Omani flag flying on the next peak. And that’s that. What makes this even better are the couple of secluded bays you will have passed – all you have to do is walk down (the one nearest to Bander Jissa actually has a branch of the path leading down to it). The beaches can be reached only by boat or by hiking, so treat them as your own, as you should the peak above. All it takes is half an hour and a willingness. The rest is easy.