One of the highlights of living in the north of Saudi Arabia is some of the amazing landscapes that surround me. This past weekend some friends and I set off to explore an area about 1 and a half hours drive away near a very small village called Bajda. Being, Friday morning (the day of the big midday prayer in Islam) not a lot happens and everywhere was very quiet.
Our first stop was to look at some Rock Art that we had found a few months ago. Sadly, they have been added to with the more modern type of graffiti – the spray can!
Old and new rock art!
By this time we were in need of a coffee and cake stop so continued on and into the desert and found a lovely ledge to admire the fantastic panorama around us.
Coffee with a view
Driving along I spotted a desert hyacinth in flower. We stopped to show it to some of the others that hadn’t seen one of these before. They are parasitic plants and certainly seem to be successful as we have seen quite a number of them in various parts of this region.
Pretty, parasitic plant.
Although we were exploring very close to where we had been another time we never know just what we’ll find. Around the next outcrop of rocks we came across a couple of caves. One was inaccessible, but the other warranted a look inside. Not much to see but outside there was an incredibly white crumbly rock- the only one in the whole area. I decided to make this a site for a Geocache.
Incredibly white rock.
Exploring the desert definitely gives you an appetite so our next stop was for lunch. We all enjoyed the gentle winter sun and the feeling that we had the whole place to ourselves. None of us was particularly in a hurry to move on but time was passing so we continued our trip.
Lunch spot
Picking up a previously travelled route we arrived at a huge arch not visited by some of the group.
It was time to head back to the Tarmac road and return home before dark. On the way we drove past a really high sand dune. In fact I’m sure I was told its the biggest in Saudi. People were beginning to gather for a competition to see who could drive to the top. Unfortunately, not being an Arabic speaker, it’s easy to miss out on local events.
We waited for about 10 minutes but nothing started so happy that we’d had a lovely day continued home.
expat in arabia 