Jan 2 - Despite the initial weather report, today starts warm and sunny. Hit the road early to get done what we can before rain starts again.
Checking out of the hotel continues the saga I’ve had since arriving three days ago. I arranged this room through Booking.com and the payment automatically posted a few days prior. However, this hotel doesn’t seem to understand how it works, as they really did not want me to check in before paying on the spot. No amount of argument would sway them. I don’t know why they didn’t have evidence in their system. Unfortunately, the payment evidence I had on my phone did not specify the name of the hotel, only the amount and date. I went ahead and paid, knowing full well that now I would need to argue my money back. It took until last night and four trips to the reception desk for them to hand over one of my two payments, in the form of cash. So today, on the way out, the receptionist (a different one) was convinced that I needed to pay AGAIN. I showed her yet another evidence of payment on my phone app, and she reluctantly decided that was good enough. Lesson learned: when using reservation apps in countries with undeveloped tourism sectors, always choose to pay at the property if possible.
Head out north west on the main road to Riyadh. I was expecting to drop in elevation into the desert, but the slope must be so gradual that I couldn’t perceive any at all. The urban development eventually gives way to flat desert, dotted with scrubs and trees here and there.
Pass a police checkpoint, but they are busy hassling other drivers and I escape notice. Not that anything would happen, I just would rather not have to get out my papers and try to explain what we are doing and where we are going.
Turn off the main highway on to a much smaller road north. Enter into a vast volcanic field, initially noted by the presence of small cinder cones and other eruptive centers associated with lava flows. Saudi Arabia has a significant history of vulcanism, with older flows from the Quaternary and occurring up to as recently as 1810 CE. A significant portion of the KSA is covered by fields of lava flows, known as harraat, totaling about 180,000 square km.
Go through the towns of Nimran and Hafir Kishb, navigating the occasional water hazard from the rains days before. A well-posted sign shows the entry for the Al-Wa’hab Crater. The crater, previously thought to be a meteorite impact, is now concluded to be a maar. A maar is a crater that forms when a large mass of magma suddenly comes in contact with subterranean water and vaporizes the latter, leading to a massive phreatic explosion due to the gas pressure. It is a logical step to imagine that something of this nature would occur here, as the area is rich in volcanic activity, including a small volcanic cone just a few hundred meters away.
It would have been nice to walk down to the crater floor, but the single guard stationed at the (closed) visitors center told us it was not permitted. I gather, from his explanation, that there have been too many cases of people getting heat exhaustion. At any rate, I wasn’t sure all three of us would have easily done it as it is quite a rock scramble.
We meet a family of Belgian travelers here. Their route this week is more or less the same as ours. Thinking back, I remember seeing them in Jeddah five days ago. We talk about traveling in the KSA for a bit. They are also renting a car, the only other vehicle in the visitor’s center parking lot.
From here, we continue north and begin curving west at Al Moyhiyah. Enter an extensive flat area with a very gentle slope to the north east. I only know this because the rains have flooded this area, and the water is just a sheet, moving in that direction. Fortunately, the many places where water floods the road are very shallow, at least for our SUV.
After the extensive plains, we are in the lava fields that extend from here to Medina.
As mentioned previously, there are many areas of lava flow in this part of KSA. The one we pass through in late afternoon is associated with an eruption in 1256 CE, that nearly engulfed the city of Medina. The flow still looks relatively fresh, with a crumpled, angular surface that doesn’t even look that weathered.
Raining heavily as we enter the city of Medina. Like Jeddah, it seems like the whole thing is under construction, all at once. There are large accumulations of water on the highways, making it a big challenge to find our way around and to the hotel. The place I booked has a name written only in Arabic on my reservation app, that translates to ‘Ghzali Wings’. I park on the street and walk around, using my mapping app to close in on the building. There is no name, but it looks like a hotel so I go in. There is a desk that looks like a reception but no one is there, so I sit in a chair and wait.
A man in ihram dress and two women come off the elevator, so I ask them if this is indeed the hotel I’m looking for. They say yes and ask if I speak English, so we switch languages and get into a conversation about what I’m doing here. They are from Sri Lanka and the man is taken back a bit that I am not Muslim, and wondering how I was able to get a visa. I can understand the confusion, I suppose, since they are traveling on an Umrah visa, which allows them only to visit Mecca and Medina, and is available only to Muslims on pilgrimage. I explain that my visa is a normal tourist one, and that while Mecca is off limits to me, most of Medina is not.
“You are so fortunate,” he says, “this city is one of the best places in the world! All Muslims dream of coming here who haven’t yet been.”
We talk a bit about some of the beautiful places to see in Sri Lanka. This is bittersweet for me because I had originally planned three weeks there and canceled due to the collapse of government in mid-2022 and shortages of fuel. Eventually the receptionist shows up and I sort out our reservation (no English here). There is parking underneath the building, saving us from walking around on the rainy streets with our bags. The room is huge with marble floors and fancy curtains. I would have reserved something more basic but in Medina nothing else came up on the booking site. The city is designed around block bookings for pilgrims on Hajj or Umrah, not for backpackers like us.
We haven’t had a chance to eat much today, so venture out for dinner in the rain. There is a basic hamburger place down the street and we chose that, even though all they have is beef.
There are heavy thunderstorms late into the night.
Saudi Arabia