Ah, it was a cool day. Perfect for touring forts. That have no air conditioning. Because they were built a long time ago.
So, we put on our sweaters, scarves and extra socks (kidding!), loaded up the kids and the sunscreen, packed a cooler with some juice for the kids (but no water because we are so very smart) and hit the road. Now, the guide book claimed that this was an excursion that would take a whole day, but you would get to see 5 forts. Obviously the authors were not travelling with a 5 year old and a 19-month old. So, for us, it became the 2.5 forts tour. But I digress.
Look! Coffee pots! The guide book actually had this as a point of interest. So, being the tourist that I am, I made David stop so I could take a picture.
But where, you are asking, are the forts? It took a little bit of work to find our first fort, Sur ar Rumays. We turned off the main highway in to a small village and then had to follow our GPS to get to the fort. There were no more roads - more like dirt trails. You see, it really is an abandoned fort. Pretty much neglected. Unrestored. Crumbling apart. But really, really fascinating. I think this was my favorite fort of the 2.5 that we saw.
Blaine totally dug this fort as well. He explored every nook and cranny. So, it's a good thing he was wearing proper footwear. Wouldn't want any pesky nails, or, oh say, HUMONGOUS SPIKES IN OLD DOORS to accidentally pierce his tender flesh.
Hey, they are Spiderman sandals. Of course they kept his feet safe.After touring the fort we hopped in the car and did a bit more off-roading to get back to the actual road. From there we stopped at another point of interest, the beach. The beach. Hot and not all that exciting, so we will skip the pictures from there. (Once again, if you want to see them, go to flickr.)
Our next fort was supposed to be the Barka fort. But here is where our expert planning skills (Dave: "wanna go look at some forts?" Jen "ok - hey kids get your shoes on!") throw a little monkey wrench into the fort touring. At this point it is 111 degrees outside. We've just gone for a walk on the beach. It's 1 PM. So now we have 2 hot kids. Not only hot, but also starving. But they are not thirsty because we brought them juice (see, good parenting!). We also have 2 hot and hungry parents - who are thirsty because we packed no water and didn't want to have to fight the kids for their juice boxes. We decide to skip actually getting out of the car and touring the fort - we didn't even take pictures, we just drove past the fort (look kids! big fort! wow!) and went in search of a place to eat. With air conditioning. This is how Barka fort became the .5 on our fort tour.
Here's where our expert planning skills, once again, come into play. It's Friday. Friday here, especially in a smaller, more conservative town like Barka, is like a Sunday in a tiny town in the bible belt. Everything is pretty much closed. The one "coffee" shop that was open had no women in it at all. We decided to skip stopping in and hanging out with the locals - we didn't want to offend anyone. Instead, we drove back toward the highway and along the way we spy a grocery store! We get out, shop - bread, peanut butter and jelly, oreos - you know the four food groups. Oh, yeah, we also got some water. Lots of water.
It was interesting shopping in this quiet town on a Friday - we were quite the spectacle. I'm taking a wild guess that they don't get too many Americans - Blaine and Kyra were ooh'd and ahh'd over. Everyone was so helpful, the manager kept coming over and asking us if he could help us find anything. After we checked out and were on our way to the car the manager came running out of the store yelling "BLAINE! BLAINE!" and waving something in his hands. He gave Blaine a set of crayons and colored pencils with a coloring book as a gift for shopping at his store. How cool is that?
After eating a roadside lunch in a shady spot (with the car running and the air conditioner at full blast), we were ready to continue on our way to the next fort, Nakhal fort.
Nakhal is a great fort - I would actually love to go back again in cooler weather and spend more time exploring. As it was so hot, we pretty much just hit the highlights of the fort. But there are many highlights as the fort is beautifully restored. Check out the entrance (and the cute kids!)
What troopers Kyra and Blaine were. They really seemed to enjoy themselves, except when we wanted to take Blaine's picture by one of the canons. For some reason he really thought that the canon was going to go off. We could not convince him otherwise.
Not long after I snapped this picture, David and I decided it was time to leave. Standing on rooftops in the 110+ degree heat is not a whole lot of fun. We loaded the kids back in the car and headed home. We will be going out again to finish the 5 forts tour. But I think we will wait until it's a tad bit cooler before we do.
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