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| The Falaj - Ancient irrigation system |
The Fort
After lunch we went inside to explore the fort. Entrance fee was about $1.50 Canadian and included a tour guide. He told us some pretty interesting things about the fort. One of the things he said was that there were 2 secret tunnels constructed throughout the entire fort. One tunnel is designed for easy escape and access to all parts, and the other tunnel is the death tunnel or "murder" tunnel as he called it, and that tunnel was designed for intruders obviously.
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| Al Hazm Fort |
Bats in the Mosque
One part of the fort seemed to just never stop, we just kept going further and further down to some dudes personal mosque. We had to crawl through a small door and jump down into these smaller rooms and steps just kept leading us further down where it got dustier and hotter as we went. And then there were bats. After the bats we decided we'd gone far enough and climbed back up to the main parts.
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| Down, down, down to the bats. |
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| Some dead dudes. |
The Escape Tunnel & The Murder Room
At the end of the tour we had the option to go through part of the escape tunnel and pass through the murder room, which I decided, sure why not. Only 2 people at a time could go through the tunnel as it was pretty small, and our tour guide led us through it. I'm not sure this tunnel should be open to the public. It was kinda scary lol. I went first, followed by a co-worker. I first had to lower myself down into a hole, a black hole, with no light. Then in pitch black, literally no light, I was told to keep my back flat against the wall and not let go of his hand, or the other girls hand. We went down about 6 steps together, and then with our backs against the wall we had to creep across a ledge. He told us that below the bottom dropped out so intruders would take the steps down and then fall to their death. We were on the 'secret' ledge where guys would hide and push the intruders off if they happened to have made it to the ledge. I'm not sure how much of it was real, and how much of it was for entertainment purposes, because I don't really think they would have something like this open to the public if it was actually that dangerous, but who knows? I don't really believe there was an actual death pit below me. Although one of my co-workers went after me with his 7 year old daughter and at one point they turned on their flashlight because she was scared and he said there was a drop off and a pit below. But I'm not really sure I believe him either. The tour is designed to scare you, like a haunted house kinda thing.
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| This is where we came out of. I took a photo of the hole I had to lower myself into but it was just black. |
The prison is a circular room, which apparently is supposed to drive prisoners crazy by walking in circles. It reminded me of the circular prison from the Disney movie Robin Hood, except their were no windows and no rooster playing guitar. There were tons of prisoners though, still all wrapped in newspaper. As soon as we all got in the prison, he shut the door on us and turned off the lights lol, and then all the kids started crying and parents started screaming. It was pretty funny. He clearly should have known to not do that when small children are present lol. But as I said before, I'm pretty sure the idea behind the fort is to scare people for entertainment purposes. They are still in the process of adding electrical and lots of buttons said "push here" for scary things to happen.
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| Isn't this creepy? Bodies wrapped in newspaper, covered in a layer of sand. |
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| None of these buttons were working yet. |
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| The cannon tower, lots of Spanish and British cannons. |
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| Hole where they would pour hot honey on intruders. Nicely labeled as the "Murder Hole" |
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| View from the top of the fort. |
