Open Writing

Last November my husband and I embarked on a 3000km road trip to the mountainous Asir region of Saudi Arabia. I was eight months pregnant and desperate for a change of scenery. It was the final days of Ramadan, when fasting must be observed during daylight hours, and absolutely nothing was open for business until sunset.

The plan was to drive six hours to the small town of Zalim, about 100km from the Waabah Crater which we wanted to see, where we would spend the night.

However, grubby one-star accommodation (masquerading as four stars) was all we found so we continued to the next town.

We arrived at the busiest time when the fast was about to be broken and hungry people were everywhere, buying all kinds of special Ramadan fare. There was nothing clean and decent to stay in there either, so my husband bought a selection of takeaways and excitedly announced we would camp in the desert.

We were not exactly prepared for camping but, luckily, I had thrown in a couple of pillows. We had no mattress or blanket so it promised to be an interesting experience.

After exiting the main road, we drove onto hard, flat desert sands and parked next to the only sparse, prickly shrub in sight. We enjoyed a meal of macaroni, chicken soup, sambosa and freshly baked Arabic bread as we sat on the tailgate of the Jeep and watched the sun slowly sink into the desert.

It was an uncomfortable night to say the least and by 3am neither of us could sleep. Wide awake and keen to see the sun rise over the crater, we were on the road by 5am. It didn’t take long to realise our map directions were very different to where we were. The book was ten years old and new roads and buildings had obviously been added over that time. So, our instructions to take the third track left after the t-junction were definitely out of date. We were not keen on heading the wrong way into the darkness and ending up completely lost so had no choice but to park up in the desert near a small village and wait for daylight.

It was closer to 7am before we got directions from the village. They pointed us in the opposite direction to the one we would have taken.
80kms and more directions later we arrived at the spectacular Waabah Crater. It was fortunate we arrived after daylight as a small timber sign at the road’s end was the only thing standing between us and a 700 foot sheer drop.

The crater is reported to be 3kms wide and experts are undecided whether it originated from ancient volcanic activity or a huge meteorite. The wind was gusting so strongly my scarf and abaya were almost ripped from me as I stood well back from the edge and peered over.

We continued to the city of Taif where we found a reasonably-priced apartment in the city centre. Mid-afternoon we decided to make the 80km drive to Mecca so we could get an early start south to the mountains the next day.

We soon realised that, with the heavy traffic and incredibly winding roads, those 80kms were going to take a lot longer than we had anticipated. I could hardly believe my eyes when the road changed from a three-lane divided highway to a narrow, winding two-way road snaking endlessly down the side of a mountain!

Monkeys provided entertainment at every corner as they scurried along concrete barriers or perched on rocky outcrops awaiting tasty snacks thrown from the vehicles.

In typical Saudi style, drivers overtook recklessly on blind corners and aggressively tailgated others, honking their horns and forcing them off the road.

Miraculously unscathed, we reached the monument at Ararat proclaiming the Prophet Mohammed’s activities there. It was incredible to be following in his footsteps of more than 1400 years ago.

We attempted to find the square where the ‘stoning of the devil’ takes place every year but accidentally drove through the tunnel into the city of Mecca. When we eventually crossed back through the hill and found the site, we discovered it was closed due to construction. A lot of people were crushed to death during Haj in early 2004 and the Saudi authorities had ordered changes to the site to prevent a recurrence.

While standing in the car park contemplating the drive back to Taif a massive explosion shook the ground beneath us and reverberated around the mountain basin. We stood there as immediate thoughts of a terrorist attack flashed through our minds - but at Mecca?

The site guard saw our dilated pupils and blood-drained faces and reassured us it was dynamite blasting for a new tunnel through the hill. Just the hill we were standing at the bottom of! My husband Amer said it sounded just like the explosives that were dropped on Baghdad during Gulf War 1.

Driving back, I got a text message from my American friend who is married to a Saudi. She wished me Eid Mubarak. The first sliver of the moon had been sighted, signaling the end of Ramadan and beginning of Eid.

Now the shops would be open for the rest of our holiday, right?....wrong.

I soon discovered that the Eid holiday was the equivalent to Christmas.

All night long beneath our bedroom window car horns honked, people yelled in the streets and hours of early morning prayers permeated the air from the mosque loudspeakers across the road.

Part two follows next week…..