Day 282: Ha’il - Jubbah (جبة) - Dumat Al-Jandal (دومة الجندل)

Jan 10 - Today it was supposed to stop raining, but it is still really wet when we load up the car. Head north to Highway 65 and go west. Once out of the surroundings of Ha’il, the land transforms from flat grey desert to bright, almost orange colored and lightly vegetated dunes. They seem to concentrate light and brighten the surroundings. Even the base of the clouds have an orange tint to them, as though the dunes are reflecting color back into the sky. The highway is a ceaseless series of hills and valleys as we cut through this dune field, part of the desert called Al-Nufud al-Kabir.

I had planned to stop by the town of Jubbah today, since it is on our route. Jubbah is nestled at the leeward base of a bare, sandstone mountain that blocks the relentless marching of sand. The rocky sides of this mountain are host to many petroglyphs. However, everything I had read about them indicated that a tour had to be organized beforehand to see them, since the whole area is fenced off with locked gates and there isn’t enough monitoring to just allow simple visitor access. I had given up trying to find out how to get permission after making some inquiries online and not getting a clear answer. I set Janet’s Google Maps for the visitor’s center and that’s where we drove.

Jubbah, like Al-’Ula, is obviously gearing up to be a cultural destination. The long main entrance road to town is lined with date palms and punctuated by roundabouts with elaborate sculptures. Numerous signs point the way to the petroglyph area, which is a UNESCO Heritage site. The visitor’s center is open and the interior looks brand new, with numerous offices (empty) and a large ‘theatre’ room with lounge chairs and a big-screen TV. As it typical in KSA, I had to walk around and look for someone, anyone, to ask about seeing the petroglyphs themselves. Eventually I did and signed into the visitor’s log. Entrance is fee. The entrance gate to one of the main petroglyph viewing areas is to the side of the building, so we spend the next hour walking around various sandstone outcrops that host thousands of drawings and inscriptions in various languages.

A bit about the site. Stone tools recovered from the place human habitation here back to between 40,000 and 80,000 years. The petroglyphs themselves date from 10,000 years to about the first millennium BCE (with plenty of more recent graffiti). Despite what the region is like now, it is known that at least up to several thousand years ago, the climate was more hospitable and hence the groundwater table high enough that water was readily accessible.

There are many places both in KSA and in Jordan where petroglyphs and old inscriptions in various ancient languages are found. We looked at a few both in Al-’Ula (Day 278) and Wadi Rum (Day 262). However, Jubbah has the most rock art of all the Middle East. What we end up seeing today is a tiny fraction of what is here. All the sandstone ridges are fenced off and only a few are commonly visited. I think they are planning to ramp up the accessibility of more sites, but like everything else here, the plan is still being worked out.

There is a tour guide here, leading around an old guy from Holland. I strike up a short conversation with the guide, and he ends up telling us to follow him to another side down the road that requires a gate to be unlocked. After a short interlude in the visitor’s center to eat some dates and see a few photos on the big screen TV, we head to the south in the car. A gate is opened for us and the tourist from Holland, and we go to another viewing platform.

The tourist from Holland needs a lot of help to get across the rocks, hobbling along with his cane.

He asks if we are self-touring ourselves around the country, and I confirm that we are.

“I am 80 years old,” he says quietly to me, “But I am still trying to do these things myself. It is not easy.”

Find a traditional restaurant in Jubbah and get our lunch, a huge plate of chicken and rice. Then on for the remaining 250 km west to Dumat Al-Jandal. Much of this crossing is through the dune fields. On the south side of this highway, almost the entire way, stretches the huge King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Natural Reserve, the largest protected area in the country. It was delineated to safeguard wildlife and stop overgrazing in a sensitive desert environment. Eventually it plans to become an ecotourism destination, though I suspect it may be awhile.

Roll into Dumat al-Jandal at about 17:00, thankfully before the sun goes down. Our hotel is the tallest building around, and is also the cheapest place we have stayed up to now in KSA.