02.02.2022

It has been a very cold night with temperatures below zero, probably minus 3 or minus 5. When we wake up the thermometer marks -1°C. The water in the bottle has frozen partially and so have we. We are at a pretty high altitude of around 900 meters above sea level and the wind blows gently from the East to increase our cold. It is still dark outside and we are about to witness the magnificence of the sun rising behind the volcanoes. It emerges right above the crater making it even more spectacular.

Marina cooks some shakshuka, completely different from the ones we have had for breakfast these past few days. Very spicy and with poached eggs in a vegetable stew. This restores us from the cold wake up and gives us energy to pack up the camp and start another day of exploration. We are certainly tired as we get going one hour later than what we had planned. No drama. At this stage of the trip we are all in easy going mode.

Before resuming our way to Wadi Al Disah, we make a quick stop at Mushroom Rock. Another pretty impressive spot that we reach after some more off-road driving.

We then head to the wadi through a stunning road. The landscape changes by the minute, going from the black volcanic rocks to sandstone and sand desert. Easy road and reckless driving of the local people, especially the big Land Cruisers. A usual practice here on the road is to drive onto the shoulder to let the car behind overtake you without any risk. Sometimes you can even be pushed out of the road by someone eager to show his ability and braveness. Crazy!

After climbing a steep road for some kilometers, we find a stunning view from the top of the hill over a big valley surrounded by big mountains that somewhat resemble the Grand Canyon.

Wadi Al Disah is south of Tabuk and a touristic place for the region. Wadi Al Disah translates to “valley of palm trees”. There is a small brook running along the wadi with puddles, big and deep puddles. You have to cross them with your car if you want to get to the end of the valley. In one of them, Marina’s car gets stuck in the mud, the wheels fully covered in mud and water. Unfortunately, there is no possibility to dig the mud to get out as we do in the desert. We have to rely on the winch she carries and the help of my car. They get you in trouble but also out of it. We get our feet wet, but this is the sort of adventure we knew we would have at some point in the trip.

The wadi is beautiful, full of palm trees, bamboos, and all kind of trees and bushes. It is called ‘valley’ for a reason. There are some local families that come here for picnic. Just after rescuing Marina and while we are stopped to refresh and have a snack, three young Saudi guys approach us. They are excited about talking to foreigners and they are very friendly and welcoming once again. We have the typical chitty-chatty, where are you from, how do you like Saudi, how long are you staying here… when the park rangers come asking if we can help a family that has gotten stuck at the same place as Marina had. She goes with her car and winch and rescues the man, who was very grateful. Another guy who helps in the rescue invites us for lunch to his home in Tabuk. Unfortunately, we cannot go as we are heading in the opposite direction. The man who needed the rescue, will still be scratching his head asking how was it that a woman driving a car helped him out of that situation.

After admiring the wadi, we head to the coast where we will sleep tonight. We choose Wajh Beach as a good place that is not so far from the wadi, but still gets us closer to our next destination: Ummluj, which is too far away to reach today. We have dinner in a local fish restaurant: grilled faris (I guess this is the name) and the inevitable rice, this time black rice. It is a relief to not eat chicken for a whole day, the first day in the whole trip. We were starting to worry we were going to grow wings.

The hotel is far from what I would like, but seems to be the only one available in the area. Really cheap and run-down.

The past few days have been much more scenic and landscape focused than the first stages where we had more of a cultural and historical experience. Saudi is a jaw-dropping country that is not disappointing us at all. However, our trip is coming to an end as tomorrow will be our last day of full discovery. We are now more than 2,300 km away from home, where we have to be on Sunday by the latest. This is more than 23 hours of driving to be done on Friday and Saturday. We will depart from the group on Friday morning after camping in the Black Sand Dunes and we will stop over in Riyadh.

Trip data

Total distance: 430 km; Total time: 11 hours 25 minutes; Moving time: 6 hours 20 minutes; Average moving speed: 67.6 km/h

Playlist

• Kokoroko- Kokoroko
• Miguel Ríos – Rock & Ríos
• M.O.D.A – ¿Quien Nos Va A Salvar?
• J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton – The Road To Escondido
• The Who – Tommy
• American Hustle OST
• Fischer Z – Going Deaf For A Living
• Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

01.02.2022

The lovely house in a bizarre way in Al Ula provided us the right rest and we are restored after the night in the desert. A hot room, a good bed and a hot shower in the morning is all that you need to feel fresh and ready for the action. We take it easy in the morning as we are starting to feel worn out of the long days and the camping nights and we need some relax. Nobody says it explicitly, but is easy to figure it out from the faces of the team.

We go to the Al Ula old town, and large part of it is still in ruins. The Royal Commission for Al Ula is restoring part of it and creating a commercial and recreational area full of fancy shops, restaurants and cafés. Al Ula is one of the areas in KSA that the government wants to promote the most and hence all these renovation works. In my opinion, these commercial sites for promoting mainstream tourism somewhat spoil the traditional Arab spirit. However, as the tourism is still in its infancy, our experience still feels unique. At night it must be very crowded in high season as there is a lot of places for outside dining, shops, and art galleries. Some of them don’t open until later in the morning and we cannot visit them.

We have a good shakshuka for breakfast with a very good coffee in the Palm Garden, a terrace overlooking some ruins below and the mosque and the mountains in the distance. We buy some souvenirs, and we head out to Wadi Disah at around half past ten.

It is a scenic road with big rocks covered partially with sand on both sides. We don’t move fast as the speed limit is no more than 90 km/h and there are a lot of police cars along the road. We have been given some side spots to visit by a German guy who seems to be a good traveler and has spotted some great sites. He told Dawn, one of our team members, that he was jailed the second day he was in the country because he allegedly took some pictures in a place where it is forbidden. He spent the night in jail until they cleared out the incident.

The first stop is at a huge arch of rock where we take a lot of pictures. We have to drive off-road for some kilometers in order to find it. The day is clear, the sky is intense blue and there is no clouds in the horizon. They are the perfect conditions for photography. We do our best with the pictures. You, my precious audience, will be judging the end result.

After some more kilometers we go off-road again and we find a former railway track from the time of the Ottoman Empire. It is a very special stop for Marina as she loves trains very much. This same railway could be the one that Lawrence of Arabia bombed to help the Arabs in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire. The tracks are not there anymore, but the bed is still in good condition, and we can drive on top of it. After some kilometers we reach the old train station, now in ruins, but that would make a great location for a resort. The station is certainly from the Ottoman Empire as there is an inscription with the Crescent and the Star.

Then we head on deeper off-road into a stunning forest of “finger rocks” with incredible shapes that have been formed over millennia by erosion. The track is full of stones and the way is too bumpy. Poor old Naranjito, my Jeep trembles and it feels like it is going to fall into pieces. Fortunately, it is a star and resists all the awful things I put it through. With the new suspension system it drives better at 80 km/h than at 30 km/h. At high speed the car seems to float over the bumpy terrain, which is such a difference.

We happen to drive to an area full of volcanoes, which is an impressive landscape. Black terrain and mountains, small cream bushes and a deep blue sky make a unique scenery. We are all astonished at these surroundings. The best is when we spot some camels roaming around, grazing with their little babies. They are white and cream colour, which is a bigger contrast in the black of the volcanic landscape.

The day has gone, and we have not reached our destination. Nobody is bothered by it as we have had an amazing exploration day. We find a very nice spot for camping close to some volcanoes and clear of stones. It is freezing cold and very windy, which anticipates a bad night. Pablo cooks some chicken on the barbecue and prepares ramen noodles for all. Marina in the meantime prepares the basis for the shakshuka that we will have for breakfast tomorrow.

The night is so dark that we have an incredible sky full of stars. None of us have seen a similar sky ever. There is no moon and there is no light pollution. 

I am laying on my bed while I write this, and my hands are freezing. It is probably around 5 degrees now and we will surely reach -3º at some point in the night. I still have to go through the photographs that you will enjoy tomorrow while you drink your hot cup of coffee. We will post it as soon as possible as we have no connection here and it will still have to be reviewed by my Editor in Chief, my son Pablo.

Data of the trip

Total distance: 254 km; Total time: 6 hours 45 minutes; Moving time: 3 hours 45 minutes; Average moving speed: 67.7 km/h

Playlist

• Joo Kraus – Low Sky Sketches
• Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Live in Gotenburg
• C. Tangana – El Madrileño
• Curtis Mayfield – Curtis

31.01.2022

Sunrise in the desert is always an experience, but the one today is one of the most stunning ones I have ever witnessed. Ali wakes up at around 5 am and with him the rest of the crew starts to get up. The clanking noise of the kettle is difficult to muffle in such remote and silent place. It is surprising that Arabs go to sleep very late and are up early for the first prayer. After this, their day starts. To make up for the short sleep they take a nap every now and then to keep going. Ali is one of these. He tells us that he wakes up very early and then, at some point during the morning, he has to close his eyes for ten minutes to recharge. Anyway, even with the short sleep we got, we are grateful for being able to admire the beautiful colors of the sunrise in the middle of this desert. The pink clouds against the blue sky create a dramatic effect that stops all activity in the camp. Only Muna and Ali keep doing their tasks as they probably have seen this so many times before.

After a cup of coffee and packing up the camp, we say good bye to Ali as he has to go back to his regular job in Riyadh. Ali is an excellent guide. Entertaining and full of stories, with a good insight of the history of the Arabian peninsula, very deep knowledge of the terrain and a lot of contacts with the local people that allow you to explore off the beaten track.

After wishing Ali a safe trip back, we depart towards the famous Al Ula. According to Ali, ula is the name in Arabic for the light sand that the wind carries on top of the rocks. Hence, this place is called Al Ula (العلا). Fine sand with a flour-like texture tries to cover the rock formations. For off-road fanatics like me, this kind of sand is extremely challenging to drive in even with half deflated tires as we have them today. That is another fact Ali gifts us for our future experience in the desert.

The road to Al Ula is a little bit more fun than the usual roads we have frequented so far and, lucky for me, full of abandoned petrol stations! Ali tells us that, at some point in time, there was a regulation imposed by the government according to which gas stations had to have certain standards and the owners of those which needed big restoration and couldn’t afford the work abandoned them. Might be true, but we also encounter a lot of working petrol stations in not such good shape. I wonder in what condition would be the ones that were abandoned.

Al Ula is famous for its proximity to Hegra (Mada’in Saleh), the second capital city of the Nabataeans. The only buildings left from this civilization are the tombs carved on the huge rocks in the middle of the sand. The Nabataeans were a nomadic tribe that traveled across the Arabian peninsula and Levant that created a civilization and political system between the 4^th and the 2^nd centuries BC. Their capital city was Petra that they abandoned when it was conquered by the Romans and made Hegra their second capital city. The landscape is amazing, with a combination of rocks and sand. We are lucky as the blue skies are an excellent companion, especially for us photographers.

The place is beautiful, but I feel a little bit disappointed as the expectations were very high. The pictures we have seen in so many advertisements create an expectation that is not met in the actual visit. In any case, we enjoy the visit a lot and we learn new things about these ancient people.

The house where we are staying tonight is lovely in a very bizarre way. The lay out is somewhat strange. One of the bedrooms is outside the house and two of the bathrooms as well, which means that going to the bathroom is going to be freezing cold. There is another bathroom out of the house for one of the two bedrooms that are inside. The kitchen is close to the outside bedroom and there is a comfortable majlis and TV room. After all, three bedrooms and three bathrooms as that is all we need. Everything is new with the protecting plastics still on. Really strange. Not very cheap for what it is.

Tonight there is no signal so this post may be somewhat delayed. Not the worst of inconveniences.

Data of the trip

Total distance: 469 km; Total time: 14 hours; Moving time: 5 hours 53 minutes; Average moving speed: 79.6 km/h

Playlist

• Ziggy Alberts – Laps Around The Sun
• Mac Miller – Circles
• Jamiroquai – 2001: A Funk Odyssey
• Camarón De La Isla – Calle Real
• Brad Mehldau & Mark Guiliana – Mehliana: Taming The Dragon
• Black Sabbath – Paranoid
• Cody Canada and the Departed – This Is Indian Land

30.01.2022

It is always good to sleep on a proper bed with clean sheets and take a hot shower, especially when it is 6ºC outside. Tomorrow when we camp it will be a whole different story. No bed and no hot shower (actually, no shower at all). But we are on an adventure and that’s what it is all about.

We meet at 7:30 for an opiporous typical Saudi breakfast. Some shakshouka and coffee to kickstart the day. We head to Jubbah, a city just 130 km away. There is no easy driving in Saudi Arabia, specially in a hectic Sunday morning. The drivers here go crazy, changing lanes without blinkers, speeding well beyond the limit and pushing the car in front out of the lane. All your attention might just not be enough to survive to their mad driving.

Jubbah is home to an interesting archeological site with petroglyphs dating back to 10,000 years ago. It is a UNESCO world heritage site that opens just for us as there is no other visitors around. We will possibly be the only ones they have today. The rock art you can see here belong to three different ages: neolithic, chalcolithic and Iron Age; ranging from 10,000 years BC to 3,000 years BC. This site is right next to an oasis rich in water that used to be a frequent stop for caravans and now has palm tree farms scattered all over the area. This fact is crucial to understand the context of the engravings on the rock.

We stop in a private rural museum where they show us the traditional way of living in a Saudi farm. How they lived, the different rooms with the original menage and the most fascinating one, how they used the camels to bring water out of the well. As always, they offer us the mandatory dates, Arabic coffee, fruit and sweets. They are very proud of showing us their estate and how they have preserved this original way of living for so many years.

We head to do some shopping in a local supermarket that happens to be temporarily closed for the midday prayer. We wait a long while for the owner to come back from his religious endeavors, the perfect time for me to photograph the petrol station on the other side of the road, the couch outside and two men that are around the petrol station. Poker!

With our cars loaded with fresh supplies, we head to Hibran from where we enter into the desert. Easy driving on rocky track and some very soft sand. No dune bashing as I would do with the Sandmasters in Dubai. The crew on this trip is not fond of wreckless driving and it is better not to risk the car integrity in such a remote area. This is a rocky desert that resembles Wadi Rum in Jordan. Red sand and big rocks create a fascinating scenery. On the way to our camp site we stop to admire some of the rock formations and the fabulous scenery. We peek a camel caravan in the distance and we carefully approach the pack travelling with their shepherd. In this modern days the shepherd drives a Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up truck.

While we are setting up the camp, Mona, our guide’s assistant cooks kabsah dajaj, a succulent local dish made with rice and grilled chicken. It is served with a very thinly chopped salad with lettuce, tomato and cucumber very well seasoned with parsley and mint by Ali, our entertaining guide. We have a delightful dinner listening to the amusing stories that Ali likes to share of his adventures in the desert. Then he prepares Arabic coffee for us in the traditional way that we have been hearing all about throughout the whole trip: roast the coffee beans in the fire, grind them and finally infuse the boiling water. Then for the authentic Arabic touch, Ali grinds some cardamom and he mixes everything to get a delicious coffee that, combined with some dates dipped in tahini, makes for the perfect dessert to our dinner.

Data of the trip

Total distance: 250 km; Total time: 8 hours; Moving time: 3 hours 15 minutes; Average moving speed: 77 km/h

Playlist

• Pat Metheny – Travels
• Miles Davis – Tutu
• The Who – Who’s Next

29.01.2022

We wake up very early to reach the Al Qassim camel market at the outskirts of Buraydah, the largest in the world. A quick coffee, pack the camp and ready to go at 7am. The market starts at around 6 in the morning and it hosts not only camels, but also goats and sheep. The first thing that surprises us is the size of the goats that are traded here. As we enter the market one huge goat falls from a car and escapes its owner, while trying to keep the other one safe at the back of his Land Cruiser pick-up. Unfortunately for the man, when he starts again, the other big goat jumps from the car and escapes as well. It took quite a while to the man to recover the poor animals that were probably smelling the knife of the butcher.

Camels are traded only certain days of the week (Saturdays is one of them), but goats and sheep are traded every day. This is one of the liveliest and most colorful spectacles you can see. I love these popular events rooted in the past, very far away from today’s clean and ascetic technologies. I hope these kind of things are never lost and traditions are kept by the people. The camel owners trade their camels either for breeding or for meat (the butcher is just some minutes away and you can take your camel in pieces back home, just in case you are hungry). It is fascinating how they trade the animals, all the shouting, the simulated fights and the final handshaking to seal the deal. Another astonishing thing is how they handle the camels and lift them into the trucks with the cranes.

Another remarkable thing to me, while I mix with the people with my cameras, is that they ask me to take pictures of them and share them to their whatsapps or they take a photo of the picture from the back of my camera. These people are os friendly and amiable that is hard to believe the misconception we have in the West about them and their supposed animosity against westerners. Far from true, they are generous and hospitable and always willing to engage in a conversation.

After the visit to the market the manager of the market invites us for a very big breakfast with dates, sweets, cheese, eggs and plenty of Arabic coffee. For those who have not lived in Arabia, Arabic coffee  is made from roasted coffee beans, which can be roasted lightly or heavily, as well as a mix of spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, or saffron. It is usually prepared from start to finish in the presence of the guest and the time while it is preparing allows for small talk and preparation of the business talk.

We leave the camel market in the direction of Ha’il a city to the north. On the way, we stop by an uninteresting archeological site and the impressive Hutaymah crater.

I am starting to become fond of remarkable petrol stations as I am of couches on the street. I cannot resist to photograph these places. I think I will need to travel around Arabia more than once to get a good collection of petrol station photographs (only hoarders like me would understand it).

Today we sleep in a hotel, which is a great relief for us. Tomorrow we will head West to Al Ula and visiting some archeological sites on the way and we will sleep in the freezing desert. Alhmadulillah

Data of the trip:

Total distance: 374 km; Total time: 12 hours 35 minutes; Moving time: 4 hours 40 minutes; Average moving speed: 80 km/h.

Playlist:

• Kase.O – Jazz Magnetism
• Pillow Talk – All The Time
• Michael Jackson – Off The Wall
• Booker T. Jones – The road from Memphis
• J.J. Cale – Naturally
• Lettuce – Rush!