14.11. Wadi Bani Awf, Al Hoota Cave

In the morning there is pleasant shade between the mountains, we pack and at 9 a.m. when we leave there is no sun. We scramble up the hills and stop every now and then to look at the views, it's a nice low sun, so it's worth it. Even the traffic is less today.

We go to the mountain village of Bilad Sayt, in the valley they have beautiful gardens, watered from aflaj. While passing through the village, we wait for an old man to pass through the narrow place, who is obviously returning from somewhere with his morning coffee. When we greet him from the window, he lights up and offers us dates and coffee.

The road through the mountains is long and full of switchbacks, but there is always something to look at. Finally, we go up to the ridge at an altitude of 2000 m.m., where we again meet the asphalt road that leads here from Al Hamra. We say goodbye to the views on the other side and down the asphalt like a stomp.

We are going to the cave of Al Hoota, it is recommended to order a tour in advance, so we will see. There are not many people here and the guided tour in English starts in 5 minutes, we're catching up. Unfortunately, the train doesn't run, so we walk half a kilometer along the stove. The cave is 4.5 km long, but only part of it is accessible to the public, there is a metal walkway with hundreds of steps, the stalactite decoration is nice, but who has visited several caves in the Moravian Karst... it is drier here and the stalactites grow the most there , where it is humid and has a lot of CO2. It is interesting that the space is flooded during the rains, so the lighting and stairs have to be repaired frequently and expensively. At the lowest point of the tour is a lake where blind cave fish live, from here you can continue on a special full-day tour of another part of the cave, which is connected with swimming, climbing and crawling. After the tour of the cave, we look at a small interactive museum on the floor of the visitor center, there is also an aquarium with blind fish from the caves.

On the way to the accommodation, we stop in Al Hamra to do some shopping, we slowly realize that it is normal here that half of the goods do not have a price written on them. When asked how much it costs, the seller takes the goods and goes to beep it at the cash register. The owner's brother gives us the accommodation and immediately offers guide services, which we gratefully decline. The accommodation is nice, with a large outdoor space, but the bathrooms are dirty and the kitchen even more so, so we clean first. Then we find out that there are small cockroach-like bugs crawling around and when the water stops running in the middle of the children's shower, Ota wants to leave in the morning. We wash the children from the camping shower, in the meantime my brother comes and turns on the pump, so finally the water is flowing, I convince Ota that we can leave the decision to leave until the morning. The bugs will probably be everywhere and we have already cleaned it up here. The children also like the swing here and we can be outside as much as possible.