Red Sands/ Graffiti Wall Trip

Spencer agreed to take a day trip out of Riyadh even though we couldn’t find one of the few of our friends to join us from Eskan.   I had made copies from the library on the compound of things to visit and do around Riyadh.  I thought I had the directions I needed to get to the Graffiti Rock, basically ancient pictures drawn on a wall.  But even spending an hour looking at the map prior to heading out we couldn’t exactly pin where it wanted us to drive once we reached a certain point.  When we left we only had a part of the directions and we thought we could figure out the rest when the time came.

The nice part of the day was driving along the red sands outside of Riyadh, than the vast ugly brown we usually see.  We drove down through steep canyon-like walls into the desert escarpment and we could see the red sands run through the valley below.

During our drive we happened to see truck with a make-shift safety belt for the goat that was in the cab. Spencer and I got a good laugh at the sight of the bahing goat with its own safety belt.

At this point we reached a village on our directions and from there we didn’t know where to go.  We took various roads hoping that something might lead us to where we needed to go.  But nothing. Then I got on Spencer’s phone to see if something online would have directions.  I found something that gave me GPS coordinates!  I thought the struggle was over, and we headed, filled with hope, to this directions. I might add that having a GPS has been a life saver for us and has enabled us go to various places. 

What was going to be a 3 hour short trip ended up taking all day. We didn’t get home until about 5 in the afternoon.  To make a long story short, the GPS coordinates I found online were wrong.  That extra 2.5 hours we spent in the car was pointless.  This is what we found at our destination: a group of white camels.

We drove around so long that the petrol tank was low, we stopped for the first time outside of Eskan to fill up our tank.  Spencer drives a Toyota SUV and we probably filled up 15 gallons or more and paid approximately $8.  It is true that gasoline is cheaper than water here. Amazing. No wonder so many people can afford to drive.

The sun to our backs on the way home cast great shadows.

The Saudi flags are up for Saudi Arabia's National Day

Cool building at the checkpoint

I felt so bad for Spencer who had to drive the whole way.   We decided that next time we need to do our research prior to heading out and make sure we know where we are going.  We were both hungry, tired, and restless.