Unveiling more of magic Saudi-Arabia and Jordan (ASJ2501)
Half of the group is allready in, the other half shows up today hopefully. The bikes are shiny and clean, waiting in the basement, ready to roll. Just missing the riders! Finally everybody arrived and Markus started the briefing in the late afternoon, giving a forecast for the next two weeks of riding and exploring. After recieving the bikes we closed the day with an excellent dinner, prepared for the upcoming two weeks.
At the briefing this morning the tourguide announced about 430 kilometers for the day. According to Markus the traffic in the mornings are not that bad in Jeddah, but we learned quickly, that we have to switch on our personal radar to survive the way out of town. To be honest, it was not that bad, maybe only for the first twenty minutes. Soon we were cruising along the Southern Corniche on the way out of town, passing by the monumental 5* hotels. At the city boundary heavy weight traffic joined in heading south, but fortunately it became less and less. Leaving the coastal strip after having lunch in Al Lith we headed East. Pretty soon the first low mountain peaks and ranges startet to rise from the flat and dry rural area. The peaks rising higher and higher finally formed a wall the closer we got to our today's destination Al Baha. Before we started to climb the well engeneered mointain road we stopped in Thee Ain to admire the renovated village. At sunset we arive at our hotel.
After most of us had been allready surprised yesterday when it comes to Saudi-Arabien's landscape our tourguide promissed us, that this will be continued. And he did not lie! Starting out in Al Baha, we climbed first (by the way, we were allready at approx. 6000 feet) and then started, what you almost could call a rollercoaster. Uphill, downhill, left turn, righ turn, tight turn, open sweeper - all things a motorcyclist is yearning for. And we found it - all day long and framed by an unbelieveable landscape. Endless mountainranges paralelling our route and as we were on the highest ridge we could look down counting them. Bigger and smaller villages nestling into the mountains and an unnumbered amount of delapidated small fortified recidences. At every stop people from young to old were asking about our travel, were we are from and where we are going to. Even a language barrier would not stop from making new friends. We took our lunchbreak in one of the typical local restaurants and what was a surprise for almost everybody: there is really good food, but no cutlery. So Ibrahim gave us a lesson how to eat like a local with your fingers. Now we are cuisine-wise and eatingtechnic-wise almost locals, as Wolfgang proves (see pictures below)
Definitely not one of the most exciting riding days, but definitely interesting as the others. We left Al Ta'if following the the major main road towards Mekka. The highway follows the valley, leading out of the mountains towards the coast. After about one hour of riding, we had to stop and take a picture of "THE SIGN", telling us, that our only one direction to continue is to go around Mekka. Finally we could leave the busy highway and switched to the old main road. The mountains turned into hills and soon we were on the flats of the coastal strip heading towards King Abdulha Economic City. Trying the visit the Highspeed Train Railway Station before entering KAEC we got surprised by the Security Forces, Sirenes and blinking lights made us stop - "no visit, no pictures" so we just headed for the hotel to enjoy the place.
After a short day yesterday we got some miles to cover today! About 430 km and most of it in the mountains of the backcountry. The day unveiled an area to us, which could not have been taken on the last tour because of heavy damages to the road by a thunderstorm. So we were the lucky ones to discover a very beautiful strech of road in an almost untouched area for this tour. The wadi is leading towards Medhina through remote landscape, dessertlike stretches with acacia trees and every now and then some camels and donkeys. While we took a break almost every car stopped, pictures were taken and friendships made. More then once we would have been invited to follow them to there home, where coffe or tea would have been surved. But we had to keep it rolling and so we continued through the mountains towards the coast. Crumbled houses of abandoned villages along the road, friendly pedestrians waving at us and a good road underneath our tyres -what more could you ask for. While having coffee in Badr we could watch busloads of pilgrims, in this case mostly from Southern Asia, climbing a big dune. We were told, that they do it to get closer to Allah.
Milage-wise another long day, ridingwise not too bad, as you can go a decent speed all the way. Open and wide roads, some traffic and very few towns to go through. But nevertheless the tourguide had a few things in his backhand. About 50 kilometers after we took off in Yanbu, we turned into one of the little sideroads and got to see one of originally 120 springs, framed decorativly with tiles. Clear water coming out of the ground and led into small channels to feed the oasis. Later, in Al Ais we were looking for a lunchspot and we hit obviously a favorite local restaurant. And they cook hot! Along the road we had a little trafficjam caused by camels. the closer we got towards Al'Ula, the more different became the lanscape. Sandrocks shape the countryside and the closer to sunset the more redish became the rocks. After enjoying together with locals the look from Harrat Viewpoint down to the oasis framed by rocks, we finished the day at the Sahary Resort. Davy and Dennis took off ahead of the groupthis morning, got a liitle earlier to Al'Ula and had a nice lunch in town. We ran into trhem on the way to Harrat Viewpoint. While we were heading for the hotel, the two of them took another small sidetrip to Elephant Rock.
Regardsless of having a restday, most of the group took off at 9 am to go to see Maraya, the fully mirrored opera house out in the dessert. Maraya means "mirror" or "reflection" in Arabic and according to the Guiness Book of Records it is the largest of its kind. The cube, 100 x 100 meters floor plan and 26 meters high, is covered by 9.740 mirror pannels, and was built within 70 days after the project was presented and agreed. It was designed by an Italian team to match and blend into the surrounding environment and indeed, if you look at it from the distance, you might not find it in the picture (see first photo). On the way back to the hotel we stopped quickly at Elephant Rock. Cultural Part 2: In the early afternoon all of us met to take the shuttle to Hegra, Saudi_arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. About 2500 years ago Nabataeans settled here along an old, tradidional trading route and built up an flourishing town. The size of the tomb was according to the wealth of the owner.
After yesterday's break everybody pawing with the hooves this morning, ready to go. After a short briefing at the bikes we took off from Sahary resort. Cruising through Al'ula we reached the road leading into the mountains. For the whole day there was no special highlight anounced, but the whole day was one. The impressiv scenery changed continually. Flats with long straightaways, all over sudden impressive granit formations, around one of the corners it looked like Monument Valley, small villages, endless stonefields, all like painted in different, permanent changing colours. And there were also camels every now and then, changing sides of the road in front of us. We finally reached Tabuk, the capital of the area.
The quote: ".....because they don't know what they're doing" could be todays theme. Well, it started out great as any of the days. We took off in Tabuk and todays destination was Aqaba in Jordan, so there was the need of a border crossing. Cruising along the mainroad towards the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba we turned off the highway at one point and travelled on a small mountainroad through untouched areas without any traffic, climbing up to almost 1200 m sealevel. As we dropped toward sthe coast temperatures raised and we got to Haql, a small town at the sea shore. From here it was only a few kilometres to the border between Saudi-Arabia and Jordan. We were doing well timewise and so everybody was looking foreward to experience sunset in Aqaba. But at at he Saudi border they changed the procedure compaired to last time and a timeconsuming action started right away. After a long discussion we had to leave the borderpost back to Saudi-Arabia, load the bikes on the trailer, organize a taxi for us and to go back to the borderpost. in the meantime the shift has changed and discussion started again. Finally we could leave the country. At the Jordan borderpost they were confused to see us in a cab and the bikes on the trailer. Paperwork, luggage scan, car scan and some discussions - finally we could unload the bikes directly there at the post and ride into Jordan. in the meantime it was allready dark, but we reached the hotel quick and safely. By the end we got rewarded with a great dinner and the first beer since we started the tour
Today we had areally short ride - only 80 km! Almost half a restday, we could savour the luxery of our hotel in Aqaba andgetting a "late check-out" we took off after a short briefing at 1:30 pm. following the mainroad towards Amman we turned after about half an hour towards Wadi Rum. But as we already had been talking about the Hedjaz Railways for days, we had to stop first the old trainstation Wadi Rum to have a look at the mean of transportation installed by the Otomans. Leaving our bikes in Wadi Rum Village we entered the famous area by pickup. Wadi Rum, famous for its rock formations, the different colours of the sand, for the rock paintings and amongst climbers, is one of the World Heritage Sites in Jordan. The camp where we are staying tonight is located far inside the wadi. Sunset is allready the rocks painting red and everybody is looking foreward to see the stars in the sky tonight.
After a stary night follows a beautiful morning! After sleeping in a little bit we were served an excellent Arabic breakfast and were enjoying the outstanding scenery surrounding the camp. Finally we had to say good bye, but we did a major tour through Wadi Rum on the way back to the village, were our bikes were waiting for us. Stone arches, rockformations, stonepaintings - pictures can't satisfy the impressions. So we headed in the early afternoon towards Wadi Musa, better known as Petra, were we arrived mid afternoon. Time to explore the town and the museum or just to relax.
It is called a restday but we kept ourselves busy. On our schedule there was Wadi Musa and the ancient town of Petra. About 2100 years ago the Nabataens settled in the mountains between the Dead Sea and Aqaba, the town was located at the crosspoint of different caravan routes. After hiking through the "Sigh" (the gorge) leading towards Petra for half an hour, the gorge opens suddenly to present the artfully facade of the Treasury. that is probably the picture everybody knows when talking about Petra. Further in there is the theater, different tombs and an magnifizent remnants of a tempel on display. For those, not tired yet, staires are leading the a place, that's called the Monastery. Mark and Dave made it all the way there. You could spend all day in Petra, the artwork and architecture give witness to the peak of Nabataen culture.
The weatherforcast for today was not the best one. At the morning briefing it looked still not bad, but pretty soon we were up in the mountains and had to stand crosswinds, headwinds, drizzling rain, wet roads and temperatures in Celsius in single digit range. Nevertheless the towns we went through were buzzling, the shops open. At the coffee break we could catch a glance of the view we missed towards Jordan River Valley. Whe the rain hit hard we were fortunately having our lunch break in Kerak. From there heading towards the Dead Sea the temperature raised every 100 meters we descended for 1° C, so we ended finally up at approx. 430 m below sealevel and with about 20° C, which felt very good. Finally we reached our hotel, located directly at the shore and a few of us used the opportunity to float in the salty wather.
After checking the weatherforecast the night before the tourguide decided to make it a late startto get around the rain which was announced for the morning. Dennis and Dave did their own thing today taking the shortest routes to the Roman remnants in Gerasa. The rest of the group followed the River Jordan Valley upstream and had a brief look at the museum at the Baptism Site of Jesus next to the river. We went through a short rainshower before we turned off the main valley and travelled through the mountains towards Gerasa. As it was Friday in almost every village we went through the speakers on the minarettes were calling for the prayers to come to the mosque. That was also the time when shops were closed and the streets were not that busy. We rolled into Gerasa and stopped to visit the Roman excavations. Walking through the ancient streets, having a look at temples and theatres, you can imagine that more than 2000 years ago this was one of the 10 most important towns of the roman empire. That size of what you see and the imagination what is still burried gives you an idea about the dimensionsof this ancient town. The ride to the hotel lead first towards Amman but turned then off into the rural countryside and hiding on one of the many hills the "Mountain Breeze" was to find.
Talking to locals we learned that this is one of the coldest winter since a long time. We did proof it all day long. The temperatures were something between 4°C when we left the hotel in the mountains and around 12 to 14°C when we were travelling through the dessert and finally reached Madaba, a part of Amman, located south of the city. Along our last riding day the experience of hospitality kept on going on, no matter if at lunch or at the sights we visited. The castle of Al Azraq gives witness of the Romans that settled here, Qusair Amra still desplays the luxery of having a small hunting castle in the desert including a "hamam" (steambath) and full of mural paintings, built about 1300 years ago. Riding the last few kilometers we were heading towards some rain clouds, but the sky could hold the drops back until we parked our bikes.
Guys, it was nice! It was a lot of fun to show you two countries that couldn't be more different in culture, cuisine, tradition and history compared to what we have at home. Thank you very much for agreeing to share your photos. This made it possible for me to capture our experiences and impressions in this blog so that those who stayed at home could also take part in our adventure. Thank you also for your team spirit, the fun days and evenings and maybe we'll see each other again somewhere on this globe on another adventure or just like that. Keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down, your tour guides Markus and Ibrahim