Friday, April 13th, 2012
Well today is Friday the 13th so I thought it was about time that I headed out on a Hash again. I know it's been like 2 months but I've been busy. Plus after my trip to the Edge of the World I have learnt NOT to go hashing when I'm hungover. Yes, I did attend another Marine House Party last night, but we went home relatively early and I was looking forward to being outdoors for a few hours.
The trip out was very interesting. Once I found a ride, along with Katie (another girl from my nurse orientation group) with Andy and Sharyl (think Charle but in a french accent) we started the roughly 1.5 hour drive to the Hash site. While on that that ride we drove through sun and rain and sand storms and hail and sometimes all of those at the same time. We also found ourselves in a very small little village after we missed a turn (pretty sure the Saudi man who waved at us from his doorway as the hail was falling was not sure what all us westerners were doing in his little 2 house town).
Eventually we made it to Graffiti Rock and got signed in and paid our fee etc. Katie and I decided to head up Graffiti Rock while we waited for everything to get started. Graffiti Rock is an area that is about 5000 years old and so named for the markings on the rocks. Not sure you can authenticate them all but always interesting to see. The area is also home to some old tombs, one of which is circular and the other a line tomb. As I'm sure you know the information we receive at these sights is pretty limited but I did learn that much. Not much info when I googled it either but here are some pictures from the day.
From the top of Graffiti Rock. That's a kite coming out of that guys head, being flown down below by my friend Coralie.
A look at that little village we found ourselves in a little bit earlier. Ok. maybe it is more than 2 houses (but not more than 4) but still very small.
After going up Graffiti Rock we climbed the adjacent hill to check out the tombs. This is close to one of those tombs.
That's Graffiti Rock and all the cars at the site. Not a huge turn out today. I think the strange weather caused some people to turn back.
A look at that circular tomb.
And this is the line tomb.
Camels!!! Have I mentioned that I really like camels? These ones must have belonged to the houses or village near by as they were just wandering around. Camels tend to return home (some sort of internal homing beacon) so no concerns they were lost. I like the little ones. So cute.
A look at some of that ancient graffiti. Don't ask me what it says.
The walk was pretty quick and lucky for us no more rain appeared and we were able to enjoy some decent weather. And then we heard the words you don't want to hear while in the middle of the desert "SAND STORM, SAND STORM, SAND STORM". And what a sand storm it was. I never knew that a wall of sand could move so quickly but it was on top of us in about 5 minutes. Needless to say it made the drive home interesting. Most of us were not sure what to do once we were inside the storm. Driving conditions were similar to winter white out conditions back home. Very difficult to see anything. For a bit all the hash cars just sat off the road until it appeared apparent that it was not going to clear up anytime soon. So in a convoy of slow moving vehicles with 4 way flashers on, we made our way onto the highway and back to Riyadh.
Sand storm on the horizon. I thought they were clouds until we were warned about the storm heading our way.
Didn't take long for that wall of sand to over take the rock itself.
Yes, many of us stopped to take pictures. How could you not? It really was cool to see.
Many of us tried to outrun it. It was not going to happen. In a few seconds the storm completely engulfed us and the world turned that eerie orange colour I posted pictures of a few weeks ago. Not very long after that it just went dark as the sun went down. It was a very interesting drive back into town.
The drive, nothing short of interesting along with the weather. Super glad I made the trip out. Can't see me experiencing anything like that anytime soon.Julie
Eerie everytime.
No comments:
Post a Comment