Follow Brian on his adventure into the desert of Saudi Arabia on a trek to Shiprock Cave and Elephant Cave.
A group of about twenty friends headed out on a calm Thursday morning at the beginning of March. Their first stop was along the road at a market which the Saudis call a souk. This souk was mostly run by Saudi women.
Poles partly buried protect the shoppers from traffic and organize parking. With broken English, shop keepers line up their tents and entice you in to purchase their goods. Brian just took pictures and left the shopping for others.
These women are selling camel milk. There is one woman standing, wearing an abaya, and two women are sitting on the left. Just left of the center of the picture you can see two black or dark brown containers with handles just behind some yellow buckets. There is a third one on the far left against the edge of the photo. These containers are camel bladders, made from the organ in the camel that is the hump. They are cleaned and washed and then used to hold water. At least these were holding water. I am not sure what the camel milk was in, but it sat there in the warm sun all day long waiting to be sold.
Dried Camel Milk and Camel Bras
In the front, on the table, are bags of dried camel milk. Amazingly enough Brian did try it, but spit it out. He said it was like eating chalk. Our family has tried dried goat milk from Mongolia and it was terrible and sour; this was not sour, just terrible. Clumps of milk paste are packed together and pressed like a pattie. One can still see the imprints of fingers left in the pattie if standing close enough. Dried milk was one of the most common products for sale. The white and blue bands hanging in the back ground are camel bras. Supposedly they are used to keep the baby camel from getting any milk. They were also fairly common items for sale.
The yellow and orange flag in this photo is actually a hand-made kite. A young boy was selling kites and one of the travelers decided to buy one. The boy did not speak English very well and when asked how much money for the kite he only held his hand up and open showing all five fingers, then closed it and opened it twice more, to signify 15 Riyal. The traveler decided that it was a fair price and pulled out his wallet to pay. Shrewdly, the boy looked into the open wallet and saw what he aparently determined was a bunch of money because he quickly exclaimed, "No, no, no..." and flashed his hand open four times. The price had just gone up! Not to be outdone, the traveler countered to stay at the original price. But the boy took the kite and pushed it into the travelers chest and shouted, "twenty riyal, twenty riyal, you buy for twenty!" The traveler stood his ground and reminded the boy that the first price was 15 and that was what he was going to pay. The boy continued to enforce the new price, but the traveler took the kite from the boy and laid it on the table while telling him that he was not going to buy the kite. At that moment a young man came over and asked the traveler if there was a problem. After hearing the explanation from the traveler the young man said that the boy did not understand and that if the price was 15, then he could buy it for 15. The traveler bought the kite, which cost four American dollars, and the younger boy politely thanked him for making the purchase.
King Abdule Aziz Palace at Natta'a. Built long ago to serve as a defense point for the nation, it had deteriorated quite a bit, but some of the fort has been restored. The walls were provided with arrow slits for surveillance and bowing. This was an archeological area and warned against tresspassing.
A few brave site-seers walked to the side wall of the fort to see the old construction. The black camel herd did not seem to aknowledge them.
The next stop on the trek was the "Old City". The travel guide was friends with a man that grew up in this city, so it may not be as old as it appears. Here you see a roadway between dwellings. A simple city street.
The Old City aparently had electricity.
This picture shows the Old City with a mosque from the New City in the background. Don't know the name of the new city.
This was the home of the man that the travel guide knows. This large part of the dwelling is the entertainment room. The rest of the home extends off to the left.
Here we have the ceiling of the entertainment room which is still fairly intact.
Inside walls, floor, and doorway of the entertainment room. Squatters have filled in the windows for protection from sand storms and sun as well as left empty cans and garbage in the corner.
Old City community water tub in the middle of the city. This was not necessarily for animals, but was to hold water to be used for bathing and washing.
This is the Old City community cistern for watering animals on the edge of the city. At the left is another old dwelling.
After leaving Old City the travelers came upon a white camel herd. This brave gentleman was offering the camel an apple.
Another traveler offering a welcome scratch. Notice the bedouin camp in the distance. These are probably not wild camels, but range camels.
Most of the herd grazing along the road side. Notice the bedouin camp in the back ground.
Leaving the camel herd, the travelers were headed to their next stop. While driving in their caravan an Arab bedouin came driving up beside the train of cars and while passing was shaking his fist at each of the cars. Brian was riding in one of the last cars and was worried that the man was upset with them. The Arab sped to the front of the group and stopped the first car which belonged to the tour guide. Everyone else was left to their imagination as the guide and bedouin carried on their conversation. After a somewhat lengthy animated discussion the Arab went to get something out of his car. Later the travelers learned that the Arab had a camp close by and had seen their long line of cars. The Arab explained that when he sees a caravan like theirs he knows that they are foreigners and he wanted to come and invite them to his camp for dinner. He had offered to butcher a goat and serve it as well as camel milk. Because the travelers already had a full excursion planned the guide declined the offer--several times! Since he could not pursuade them to come to his camp he returned to his vehicle to retrieve his infant child. He then offered his child to everyone in the tour since he believes it is good luck to have a foreigner hold your child. Incidently, shaking a fist is a sign for "STOP"!
This jebel is known as Elephant Cave because of the elephant and hippopotomus bones found in the rock. Hippo? In the dessert? Seems there was water here once upon a time.
Some youthful travelers enjoying the dunes against the rock at Elephant Cave.
Group picture at Elephant Cave. Maybe they are just getting out of the hot sun. Of course, Brian is not in the picture, since he is behind the camera.
At the lower center of the huge rock you can see where an elephant tusk once protruded. Scavangers have long since broken off the ivory and an indentation is all that remains.
Some travelers went higher up on the jebel and looked at other parts of the Elephant cave.
Hikers at Elephant Cave
More tusks in the rock at Elephant Cave.
The lighter horizontal and vertical marks are bones. A hip bone can barely be discerned in the vertical set.
Some of the travelers while on a lunch break at Elephant Cave.
A jebel is a huge rock formation protruding up out of the desert sand. They all look the same to me. The name of this somewhat unique jebel is Shiprock Cave. On the plateau of this jebel was a dwelling of some kind that was extremely protected since there was only one way up. Follow the guide up ahead to see the entrance.
Even though these pictures are small,
they can give you an idea of the size of Shiprock Cave.
The rock is large, the cave is not.
This view is from the top of the sand bank, but still at the bottom of the rock cliff/wall.
Here Brian is at the entrance to the cave. Keep in mind that he is on his hands and knees. The flat rock ceiling above continues over his head and body. A friend said it took three tries, going part way in and back out, before he finally forced himself all the way into the cave. Eventually one must do the commando crawl!
Bottleneck pass into Shiprock Cave.
Beyond the bottleneck into a wider area. This cave is dark. The only reason we can see anything is because of the flash of the camera. Above is the solid rock ceiling. Below is the sand and gravel floor. To the left is a large rock. Straight ahead is a small room, or opening, where previous spelunkers are gathering. Brian must crawl through this room in the dark, or use the light from his cell phone.
This is what greeted the travelers after the dark cavern?!!!
There was no way that Brian (safety-guy that he is) was going up that...ladder.
Brian did volunteer to hold the ladder for those few daring souls that did climb to the top. Claims were made that the view was fantastic and some found potsherds as souvenirs. Brian came home with some great pictures and lots of sand and gravel in his hair.
