Abha

This is the view from our hotel in the city of Abha. The city is up at about 2000 meters (5000 ft) and is much cooler, greener and cleaner than Jeddah.
We were up at the highest point in Saudi Arabia.
There is, of course, a park there.

There were quite a few baboons in the area. They have apparently come over from Africa and are considered native to Saudi Arabia. We saw a rather large group coming around wanting to be fed.

The group took the cable car down into the valley. During this trip, we were actually on three different cable cars.

Here is the official sign at the top of the cable car showing the altitude as 2717 meters above mean sea level (8830 feet). No wonder it was cooler than Jeddah (sea level).

This is Marwan, our guide, exiting the car at the bottom. He has been our guide for Madain Salah and Schweber Beach trips, too. He is a Saudi Arabian and wears a thobe and ghuptra (traditional costume) when the group is traveling but wears western dress for actual touring. A very nice guy! He is looking for a western wife if you are interested!

This is our token secret policeman in the follow car. He followed us wherever we went to protect us. Notice the sunglasses which he never took off!

This is the Rejal museum. It is mostly unoccupied but was once a thriving community. We think they built it like this as protection from the heat. There was a rather spirited discussion about the wooden structures which stick out. Some maintained they were bathrooms but gave up when it was pointed out that they are all on top of the other! The guides tend to give out almost no information about anything. We are not sure why.

This is from the interior of the museum. It reminded Jim of museums about the 1930’s in Kansas; pretty much whatever they could find is suddenly “historic” and is put in the museum.

This is the gold souk (market). The shops in the background look like a strip mall, but that is exactly what the old traditional markets have become. The shops are small and air conditioned; not like the old black and white movies! The guy on the back of the truck is hawking whatever he had in the truck using a loudspeaker system. We don’t speak Arabic, but he was obviously saying things like: “This price is so low, I’m practically giving it away!” and “If the price was any lower, I would be giving the money to YOU!”

This is a typical gas station. Notice the marble floor! Notice the lack of prices. Gasoline is a state controlled business and the prices are all the same everywhere in the Kingdom (about $0.70/gal). About 5-10 years ago, the price was $1.50 per fill up. It didn’t matter if you needed 5 liters or 500; the price was the same!

This is a house built to show the historical style. The rock walls are easy to understand. The mud walls were built with flat stones inset to act as a rain gutter and push the water away from the wall. Easy concept and it definitely shows you that it rains here!

This tent roof shows how colorful they can be on the inside. This is actually inside a large party hall.

This is the group of musicians who were hired for the night. We weren’t there for the party (a group of Abha businessmen hired the entire complex for the night!), but we got to watch their dress rehearsal.

This is the edge of the escarpment where we rode our second cable car down to the “hanging village”. Like the cliff dwellers of the American Southwest, they were very difficult places to attack.

This is part of the village seen from the cable car.

Here we are having tea with most of the traveling group down at the village.

This little Polish girl (Katrina) was dressed up by one of the guys at the local museum! Jim has entered the photo in the annual Historical Society photo contest (results later!).

Notice the solar panels for the cable car. They power the emergency radio and lights in the car. The cable car system is powered with plain diesel generated electricity.

Typical picnic area at one of the national parks near Abha. Notice the actual grass growing without a sprinkler system. You probably will never understand how rare this is in this country!

This is an example of the terracing used to make maximum use of the rainfall. Without it, most of the area would just be a brown desert.

Typical view of the city of Abha. Definitely greener and cleaner than Jeddah.

Nice art deco colors of part of the city. We were in our third cable car when we took this photo.

Saudi family picnicking. Notice the lady reading a newspaper!

We were trying to take the sunset, but the ladies kept peeking at us and taking our pictures with their cell phones. They had probably never seen that many bare headed women in their lives! The men were seated at a separate table to the left. We were, of course, seated men and women mixed and the women were not just MBO’s (Moving Black Objects).

Wahab Crater camping trip

We went on a camping trip to the Wahab Crater over the weekend. It is located about 6 hours of driving east and a little north of Jeddah. We went on a little tourist bus with some people from the British Consulate.
The crater is a remnant of a much more violent period in the geologic history of Saudi Arabia. Some people actually question whether or not it is volcanic or the result of a meteor strike. If you know your rocks, it is obviously volcanic in origin. People in the Pacific Northwest know about cones and craters because of Mt St Helens.
Sunrise over the crater was spectacular.

Here is Alonda and her bodyguards. We had lots of guards because of the British Consulate people. Also, the area is close to the summer capitol of the country and the King and his entourage can show up at any time. They have to have lots of guards all the time, anyway.
Notice the guards: They wear white thobes (you can't run in a thobe), sandals (ever been in a hurry over rocks in your sandals?), shoulder holsters (any enemy will be a lot further away than a 9mm pistol can shoot), cigarettes (high stress job) and cell phone (have to talk to your friends, don't you?). They didn't actually do a lot of 'guarding'.

Camping (Saudi style) is not like you remember from the Boy Scouts! Notice the red carpet on the rocks, the truck with the spare Port-a-Pottie and giant tank of water and, of course, the satellite dish. We didn't use the Port-a-Pottie since they permanent buildings in the background had toilets and showers. We are not sure why we slept in a tent.

Here is the "camp" site with the "bodyguards" outside the fence with their own little camp site. They had to walk all the way in to use the toilet. Really roughing it!

We walked down into the crater. That is why we came, isn't it?
Walking down doesn't sound that tough, but look at the next couple of pictures. The crater is about 500 meters deep. That isn't much until you realize that is over 1/4 mile straight down! It got quite hot hiking back out.

Here are some of the major features of the crater.

Here is the same picture without the writing on it.

This is the escarpment on the southwest side of the crater. The hole is about a mile across. We aren't sure and haven't found it on GoogleEarth yet.

This is the actual trail down into the crater. If you click on the picture, it is supposed to open in a new window at full size. Can you find the human figures on the trail?

Even though the crater is an extinct volcano and is surrounded by cinder cones, there is life here. We found this Desert Wheatear nesting and eating in this berry bush. Looked like currants, but we didn't taste them! We saw some swifts and Desert Larks, too.

This is what we found in part of the bottom of the crater. The bubbles are formed by soda, salt and water. That is what you put in chocolate chip cookies to make them rise and it works for mud, too! The desert has very little rain, but that doesn't mean NO rain.

These are what are known as "Saudi Diamonds". In reality, it is obsidian and malachite crystals. There are some other varieties which are quartz and polish up nicely, but we prefer the real thing!

Traditional sunset picture. The End.

Square Dancing??

Even in the wilds of Saudi Arabia, parts of American culture flourish! There is a small square-dancing group on the compound next to the school. Alonda & Jim have been learning to go in circles.

New jobs!

We have accepted jobs starting next year at the Karachi American School in Karachi, Pakistan.
You can look them up on GoogleEarth if you want to, or you can check their web site. http://www.kas.edu.pk/

Shuwaiba Beach – Full moon escape (20 Mar 2008)

We enjoyed a picnic and camping with friends from school and the Jeddah Natural History Society at a location south of Jeddah. We were only out one night.

It was windy and sunny when we got there, so we put a tarp between the two cars (we started with three cars but one broke down) and had appetizers and drinks out of the wind.

We set up tents right next to the Red Sea. It was a little windy, but the waves crashing all night covered that up.

This shows what the shoreline was like. It is uplifted coral that is now in the process of being worn down.

This shows what can happen if you don’t pay attention to the coral reefs. You can see this ship on Google Earth. When the satellite took the photo, the ship was anchored to the reef. Over time, the ship has been shoved around and had its bottom ripped out. The fishermen in the foreground show how shallow it is so close to shore.

The first time you see this sign, it is quite a shock. After all, what are camels doing wandering around in the desert? Oh, right … They live there! The background is what we saw for over an hour of driving. There is absolutely nothing out there…

Except for the camels. The camels are the tallest thing except for the power lines and mosques.

This is the promised full moon. It was really bright all night.

The sunset was quite spectacular.

New York trip

We went to New York City for our 17th Wedding Anniversary (and to look for a new job!). We had a wonderful time touring the city. We actually didn’t take that many pictures. It isn’t that the city isn’t pretty, but it WAS February.
1 The symbol of New York City! Lady Liberty looks good. She has been recently cleaned and renovated and the lines were long. We didn’t wait. We took the Staten Island Ferry.

This is view from the restaurant in Times Square where we had our anniversary dinner. We never did get across the street to get our “free” Hershey bar!

This is the view on our anniversary from that incredibly romantic spot: the Empire State Building. Wonderful views in all directions. It felt a little like Disneyland; the lines weaved back and forth and you almost never stopped walking.

This is the shot Jim wanted to buy as a postcard, but never found. This is the (small) lobby of a very large office building. The tourist crowds are so heavy that they are putting in a second lobby for the people who actually have business in the place.

A truly relaxing way to see the city is to take the Staten Island Ferry. The views are spectacular and it is free. There are always large numbers of tourists, even though it was the middle of winter.

We had a nice time in New York. One thing we always wanted to do was see a Broadway show. We got tickets for “Mama Mia”. It is a musical based on the music of the group “Abba”. It was really a lot of fun. We, of course, took no pictures of the performance.