Ayn Al Hamam and Bowsher ruins

I'm pretty sure this doesn't qualify as a road trip because these two sites were pretty much in the city and hardly a 30 minutes drive but yeah it is definitely something to be seen and experienced!I happened to see a few articles about the hot spring in Bowsher and it intrigued me. Bowsher??That's where I am 6 hours a day,6 days a week!Would have been such a shame if I didn't try to find where it was right?Absolutely!!Luckily google maps did have Ayn al hamam listed and off we went!

When we got there all we saw was a dry patch of land on one side and a Towell construction site on the other and thought damn!It's gone!

That's how dry it was and I had to take a 'from where I stand' pic. Shiven decided to join in too or rather photo bomb his way in 😉

We managed to walk across the wadi and saw a bunch of 'steps' leading to an irrigation system pumping water from the spring.No wonder the land was dry!The water streaming from it looked amazing and I put my hand in only to yelp in pain.It was HOT!That's when I noticed the steam!!

Can't really see it in this video though.But apparently the Ayn Al Hammam hot spring is situated at a huge fault structure, separating Triassic dolomite (sedimentary rocks) from ophiolite (volcanic rocks). They were brought together in a huge tectonic movement called obduction. It appeared when the ocean floor in front of Oman’s coast was pushed above the Arabian continent, forming the Oman Mountains.
Most of the hot springs in Oman (Kesfeh in Rustaq and Thwara in Nakhal) are located along this major fault.
The hot water of this spring has traveled far from within the ground where the temperature is a lot higher. Here the heated water rises from beneath the ophiolite where it is in contact with the dolomite.
As the water travels through the dolomite it dissolves calcite from the rock. On the surface the calcite re-crystallizes along the hot water aqueduct(this is what you see in the video)
At around 65 degree Celsius the Ayn Al Hammam spring is said to be the hottest spring of Oman!!It is considered to have healing properties due to its high mineral content.(Info courtesy:Ministry of Oman tourism website)

The kids looked like they had stepped into a sauna thanks to the steam. 

We decided to follow the Falaj system and see where it takes us.Led us to this huge mountains with crevices.I have no clue what they were but it made for a pretty interesting pictures.

The dry spring at the base

Mountain with those crevices.This was a hard climb with loose rocks.

I did a quick google search to see if there was anything else in the area but came up with nothing and suddenly there was small mention of Bowsher ruins.Google map said it wasn't too far from where we were so off we went in search of it.I wish I had remembered to use my Geocaching app but I didn't sadly.The ruins believe or not was right in the middle of the city.It may not last for long because there seems to be some construction happening around it.Not much information out there but from what I gathered,these ruins are remnants of traditional Omani architecture consisting of mud bricks made by hand using local clay and coarser grained wadi gravel deposits.The walls were then plastered with sajooj which is a type of plaster made from burning a blend of clay.The tradition and method of building was passed on from father to son but no one sadly does it anymore and these have been replaced by the modern sand,bricks and mortar.It must have been a resplendent house once upon a time.

The inside

There was so much to explore but I wasn't sure how practical it would be with the kids running about but it definitely is one of those places that needs time and patience and I didn't have both by this point!Nevertheless,I'm glad we did manage to see it before it disappears altogether!

Vive Valeque ♡

Kavita