Month: December 2021

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Camping and camels

Hello and welcome back to Riyadh where it’s another day of sun – although the mornings are much fresher and the evenings cooler, with daytime temperatures only reaching 22 degrees…#literallyfreezing lolz!

This will be the last blog of 2021 and it’s a bumper photo edition from a recent camping trip and a day spent with some supermodel camels at the annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival.

Our camping trip was to an area called Sa’ad about two hours east of Riyadh in some beautiful red sand dunes. We had a fabulous time, saw the sunset and the full moon rise – and it even rained a little bit overnight. It was quite something to be woken up by raindrops hitting the canvas in the desert.

Many thanks to the Riyadh Rovers and our friends Freddie and Stephen for bringing us a along and sharing their adventure with us :0)

Riyadh Rovers Full Moon Camping Trip

I also recently spent a day at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival – the world’s largest camel festival! Camels are big business here with prizes worth $40million. They are judged on their looks ie their proportions, markings, size of the hump, condition of their coat etc. There has been some well publicized controversy this year about camels being disqualified for receiving botox to make their lips bigger – but there was no mention of that the day we went.

The festival runs for a month and a half every year a couple of hours north of Riyadh, covering an area of 32sq Kms. 33,000 camels take part in the annual cultural, economic, sports and entertainment festival where they are judged on their looks in different categories. There are some race days, just not on the day we were there.

The main area has a show ground with stands and a VIP area. Adjacent is a pop up village offering a laundry, bank, butchers, grocery store, hardware shop etc providing services for all the people who are part of the festival and camp there along with the camels for the duration. There’s also a large area offering desert tents for rent by visitors, and of course spread out are the camel camps, with herds who travelled from all over the Middle East to take part.

The day we went was competition day for herds of black camels. A herd is up to 80 camels, all female + calves and one male. They are judged on how they look as a herd and they are paraded up and down in front of a panel of judges headed by one white camel who is ornately adorned. There were 10 herds, so 800 black camels in total, on show – and they were amazing to see. The camels really are like supermodels and they are treated as VIPs with crowds in the stands singing to welcome them.

The Saudis running the event were incredibly welcoming. They really wanted us to have a good time and nothing was too much to help us get our photos and make sure we had a good day. We were hosted in the VIP area and offered qahwa and dates on arrival. We were also given special access to the camels who take part in the opening and closing caravan parade:

Then we spent some time wandering along the Al_Dahna Street Souk where Bedouins have a roadside camp selling food, qahwa (Arabic coffee), chai (tea), freshly made bread and anything and everything you could need for your camel or camping…

It was a really fabulous day. I went with Haya Tours (you can find them on Instagram) run by the indefatigable Salwa – a one woman powerhouse. People at the festival were so friendly and helpful and other Saudi visitors couldn’t believe this group of tourists in their midst – they were very keen to photograph and film us with car loads slowing down so they could shout ‘Welcome to Saudi Arabia’. The Saudi women weren’t keen to be photographed, but they also wanted to wave and say hello.

And that brings us to the end for another year of Our Big Arabian Adventure. It’s been eventful!

Festive greetings to you all and wishes for a healthy, safe and better 2022, and I’ll see you back here in January,

Anne :0)

And that’s all folks!

Featured

What’s New in KSA (Part 4)

Going Metro and Greening Riyadh

Hello and welcome to Riyadh where it’s another day of sun! Riyadh is a city built in the middle of the Arabian desert, it is dusty, beige and HOT (especially in the summer!) But, undeterred by the harsh conditions, the authorities have decided to turn it into a living, breathing, blooming beautiful garden – and greenery is sprouting everywhere!

New landscaping incorporates planting schemes.

The Green Riyadh Project has been launched with the aim of making it one of the world’s top 100 most livable cities.

Planting is popping up outside residential villas.

Not somewhere to do things by halves the project will see 75 million trees planted, the creation of 43 major parks with the biggest larger than Central Park, together with 3,300 smaller parks and gardens dotted around the city.

Date palms line major roads.
Trees are included with all new builds

Massive landscaping is already being carried out with date palms are being planted along all major routes, and legislation has been introduced requiring all new buildings, including mosques, schools, public facilities, airports etc to incorporate planting schemes.

It is the largest afforestation project in the world, and will use treated wastewater for the new green spaces. It’s projected to reduce the temperature in the city by 1.5 to 2 degrees in the summer, making it more live-able and encouraging people outside to enjoy the new spaces and take exercise (part of another initiative to get Saudi’s active!).

There’s a huge road intersection not far from where we live, it’s a vast area, maybe the size of four football pitches. Until recently it was a real eyesore, piles of rubble strewn with empty plastic bags and bottles. There were some small stumpy trees but their branches were tangled with plastic bags, but it has been cleared and a huge earthmoving project is underway with stone walls and terraces being built ahead of new planting and lighting – and maybe even a water feature? Who knows, anything is possible!

Going Metro

Everywhere you go in Riyadh there are new metro lines being built overground and underground. Snaking all over the city the new metro system is planned to introduce a new connected public transport system.

Currently the car is king – Riyadh is built on an American grid system which favors the car, which together with low oil prices and an oppressive heat making being outside uncomfortable for any length of time for at least five months of the year, means people want door-to-door travel in an air conditioned car – so until recent times, public transport has not been a priority.

However, with a rapidly rising population, increasing traffic congestion and concerns around air pollution a new metro and interlinked bus network has been taking shape.

Work started on the Riyadh Metro in 2014. It will cover 176km, with 6 city-wide lines, 85 stations, plus a 1,900km interlinking bus network with 3,000 stops – and it’s all being constructed at the same time!!

Estimated to cost $24.4billion, it was due to open last year (2020), but has faced a number of delays including the pandemic. It’s getting closer though, and it’s now commonplace to see the odd little metro train trundling along the line nearest to us on a test run.

The extensive nature of the network and the fact it’s being built all at once has meant years of road diversions and closures across Riyadh. Generally there’s no prior warning when a road will be closed, which can lead to huge tailbacks and some very frustrated drivers and passengers – I watched once from our office window as cars backed up at a major road junction when one of the roads was closed without warning. A cacophony of horns erupted until one driver got out of his car and took it upon himself to start directing the traffic – (which he did really well!) Thankfully most of the road disruption is over now that the main infrastructure is in place.

It’s hoped the metro will cut down on some of the 10 million car journeys taken every day in Riyadh and reduce the 7-9,000 annual death toll…

And that’s a wrap for this short series of ‘What’s New in KSA’ blogs. They’ve been fun to write and reflect on how much things have changed in the three years since we arrived here.

It’s a rapidly changing city and nation – who knows how much it will have changed again in another three years’ time?

Until next time, stay cool!

Anne :0)

Insta: anne.mcgrath248