At the top of Jabal Bani Jabir life is sparse. Looking at the landscape you can understand why. So arid, so bare. Yet, here and there, lost in nowhere, some people have managed to find reasons to stay.
Isolated, with close to no resources at all, families have settled and managed to survive here for millenniums. Evidence of that presence are the stunning beehive tombs erected throughout the plateau. Built around 5000 BC, in the same configuration as the other tombs found throughout the mountains, it shows the interaction all those tribes had between one another, and how closely related the population of those areas where. Sharing the same believes, values, customs and rituals despite the distances and natural barriers.
Above me, a large group of Egyptian vultures circles in the sky. About two dozens of them, flying around, playing with the wind, passing so close above my head I feel I could touch them. I am on their playground.
When I remember all the time and effort it took me to spot and observe for just for a few seconds, their cousin the Bearded Vulture in the Vanoise national park in the french Alps, I can’t believe how lucky and privileged I am at this moment. They don’t seem to want to leave, and me neither.