The Nefud Desert is over 100,000 km2 in size.
We only travel through a small part of the southwest of this huge desert.
However, our start begins with a break, as storm clouds are gathering.
And after all, it is a gift to be able to experience rain in a desert.
The next morning we set off around small ponds. Rock slabs alternate with gravel plains and sandy areas.
This part of the desert is relatively flat, but not so flat that you could drive through it everywhere.
That’s why we curve around small rocky outcrops and other obstacles – all day long.
But the drive is not exhausting, because we enjoy the desert to the full.
The desert surprises us again, because grass is already starting to sprout in this corner.
This shows how fertile the desert would be with enough rain. Wonderful.
This is followed by a section with some small rocky elevations and weathered rock structures.
Finally, we reach our destination for the day, the bizarre rock formation of Jabal Mahajah.
We standnext to our vehicle in amazement and can hardly believe the sight.
But it is true and fascinating at the same time. The pictures speak for themselves. We are grateful to be alone here again.
That means more enjoyment for us.
We ride over sand, gravel and coarse rocks into a small mountain range close to Ha’il.
Naturally, we let the air out of the tires.
This makes the ride on gravel a little smoother and we are also prepared for sandy passages.
After this amazing rock formation, we turn into a “green” valley.
It must have rained a lot here.
Nice, the green is simply good for the eyes and the heart.
Suddenly the palm groves are in front of us and the road turns into a gravelly stream bed.
Some of the palm groves are well-kept, others are badly neglected.
Perhaps there is too much competition from the large palm plantations here, so that cultivation is only worthwhile to a limited extent – or perhaps the palms have suffered from drought?
We stay for two days.
Towards the evening we are visited by two brothers.
They are very friendly and pleasant.
We enjoy chatting with them and hope to see them again, as at least one of them works in Riyadh.
You can get a better insight into this stage of the journey in our short drone video.
Full screen and sound on.
Have fun.
The hour has struck.
We drive back to Riyadh and plunge into the urban confusion. On the way, we find one last idyllic place to spend the night above an oasis that stretches for kilometers along a wadi. In Riyadh, we spend the night in residential areas in parking lots, but stay in the same place for a maximum of two days.
In Riyadh, an Arab and completely veiled lady drives into us. It drives parallel to us and pushes us to the side of the road. I move out of the way, but she still presses against us, so I move out of the way even more. We are traveling at a maximum speed of 40 km/h – fortunately. Now it’s time to wait. After an hour, an insurance agent comes by. However, when he sees that we are driving a foreign vehicle, he tells us that the traffic police are responsible. After another hour, a policeman appears, but he doesn’t speak English either. He’s only interested in the lady and I have to pull him by the sleeve to make him listen to us. The situation was such that the lady apologized to us first, she even hugged Verena because it was her fault. Then reinforcements arrived for her and when the policeman arrived, she claimed that I had made a swerve. However, this cannot be due to the position of the vehicles. Well, we are grateful that no human life was affected and that our legal expenses insurance is taking care of it.
Just once, we park not two, but three nights right next to a mosque. The evening before, an elderly gentleman wanted to invite us for tea. But we didn’t want to. This evening he appears at the door again with a bag containing a thermos flask of tea, dates and two teacups. Since I was in “my house”, I opened the door in unseemly shorts. That’s why he comes to our door again and hands me a white bundle, which turns out to be an Arab man’s throw. To return the teapot and cups, I throw on this Arab dress and go to the door of his house. Now we are invited to have another cup of tea and Verena has to come too. Without further ado, she is also given a dress, a dark blue one. We drink tea and Arabic coffee and are in a cheerful mood. All four of his sons introduce themselves to us, as do his daughters and his wife. Of course, they are all educated people. The next time we stand at this mosque, we now know what will happen to us … there are people waiting there that we already know a little.
