Sheba's Palace Traditional Geocache
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Size: 
(regular)
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A traditional cache near to the ancient ruins of Sheba’s Palace.
The stony ruins of the Queen of Sheba’s Palace or “Hisn Shimmel”, are believed to have been part of a large fortified hill settlement that existed from the 14th to the 19th Century, and thus has little connection with the 10th Century BC Queen Balqis of Sheba. From the top of the hill there is a beautiful view towards Ras al Khaimah and the sea beyond, while right behind you the Hajjar mountains rise majestically upwards.
To reach this unaltered, ancient place turn right about 4.5 km out of RAK on the road leading to Musandam, at:
N 25 49.713’
E056 00.388’
and after 1.5 km take the first right turn off the roundabout and keep left at a fork in the road near to a new fort-like building. The car can be parked at the foot of the hill on which the ruins can be found at:
N 25 49.147’
E056 01.962
A flight of stairs leads halfway up the hill and the summit can be reached via a hard sand and gravel path.
The Queen of Sheba ruled over the land of myrrh and frankincense on the Southern shores of the Arabian peninsula. This cache is dedicated to this mystical land and originally contains:
• A small notebook, pencil and sharpener
• Four bags of frankincense from the land of Sheba
• Five miniature baskets woven by Bedouin ladies from the dried fronds of the finger palm bushes growing in the same area
• A small book with words of encouragement
To make the cache a little less obvious to geomuggles the container has been wrapped in cloth before being hidden.
In addition, to celebrate this our second cache in the UAE, there is for the FTF cacher a special prize: an unregistered silver 2007 Usedom Geocoin. So hurry up, bag your FTF and register the coin in your name on www.geocaching.com! Who will win the race this time?????
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Xrrc lbhe abfr gb gur tebhaq.