Yo Homies,
Today we find our hero on the road to Jeddah. Up
before the sun, our hero and his trusted driver once again brave the hot desert
in search of the “yellow paper”. O.K., enough of the fun stuff, it was
pretty much an uneventful trip, I think everything went as planned. The
yellow paper is a receipt stating that permission to issue a visa has been
granted, or at least that is what I was told.
It is about 206 miles from Yanbu to Jeddah, about a 3 hour
drive. I am not sure, but I don’t think the area between Yanbu and Jeddah
would not be called desert. It has a lot of sand but it is mixed with
rocks. The tops of the dunes are dark, the color of the rocks. It
looks like the sand has blown away from them and is deposited in the low areas
around the dunes. A continuous mountain range can be seen to the East of
the highway. I think they vary in height from sea level to 6,000 feet
high. The Red Sea is to the West usually within 5-10 miles along the
route, but at some places, you can see it. The roadway is totally fenced
both sides and a fence divider in the middle. It is a government looking
fence, the same poles and wire the whole way. There are very few exits,
usually leading to some government project or company, the desalinization
plant, Aramaco, Samref, King Abdullah Economic City. The entrance to all
the buildings/projects usually goes through some “Grand Gateway” or arch with
the Kings picture or other information about what is inside. They look
nice and I like looking at the different architecture.
There are a grid of cell towers going both East/West and North/South
with a tower every 10 kilometers in all directions. Visibility is limited
to about 10 kilometers, I’m not sure why, it is very flat but it is often
difficult to see the mountains or the next cell tower, it may be blowing sand.
I have seen quite a few herds of camels. I am
surprised to see so much difference in color of camels. There are white
ones, brown ones and some that are mostly black. There are even “Camel
Crossings” going over the highway. There are no roads to the overpasses,
just signs saying Camel Crossing pointing up to the overpass. It is neat
to see the camels in the herds, there are big and little camels that you never
see in the zoo. You also see a few herds of goats and sheep. The
goats look like our goats but the sheep are smaller and very skinny.
At different places you will see tents out in the
distance. Sometimes you see the people but not often. Some places
have old tents and also newer cinder block buildings, at most 10’ by 15’, just
a place to sleep. There will be an camel or goat hanging around.
There are remnants of tents and block buildings dotting the landscape.
Often times these tents are by small vegetated areas, little green islands in
the vast sand/rock landscape. I can now honestly say West Texas is green
and beautiful compared to here.
In the visa office, the walls have many pictures and banners
with Arabic scenery and words, there is no doubt you are in an Arabic
country. That being said, there is one medium sized picture of a few
houses that look to be from an English countryside. Quaint little
cottages looking down on a flowing stream, green grass surrounding them, a real
peaceful picture done quite well. It seems so out of place in that room.
Although it was a good day and things went well, it is still
very uncomfortable going and doing things as far away as Jeddah. In
America, we are accustomed to going and doing when and where we want.
Here you lose that freedom, you have to arrange a driver, convey to him you
wishes and hope he understands. Because he is driving, you have no
control, something we very much like having. Throw in the 4 daily prayer
times and you can find yourself sitting in the car waiting for stores to reopen
and people to return.
Not much else to say, hoping to have a good trip to the
grocery store tomorrow.
TJ in KSA
No comments:
Post a Comment