Ash Sha‘bayn

At one stage, as I am following Jasmin in her car, I wonder about her erratic indicating and blinking warning lights. Finally, she pulls over, comes running towards me with a beaming smile and asks me if I saw those monkeys. No I hadn’t seen them but I tell her, there will be more and we continue our journey. All by myself I wonder how I could be so blasé about it, what if there are no more monkeys? But I needn’t worry. Just some corners further down the road, they were roaming the hills. More than 50 of them, a huge family, big boys, kids, mothers carrying babies on their backs and around their bellies. When we stopped, they were running towards us, carefully, noisy, screeching and each fighting for the apple pieces we were throwing towards them. Of course, we were targeting the mothers who were a bit slower than the rest, hampered by the precious cargo they were carrying. At one point king monkey ran screeching towards Jasmin, who could rescue herself into her car just in time.
Rex did not like the monkeys. I think they reminded him too much of screaming children. So, after a bit of barking he decided to hide from them in his safe spot between the driver’s paddles.
These monkeys were from now on a daily occurrence. You could spot them everywhere, on the mountain peaks, on the walls lining the roads, in the morning rummaging in the big rubbish bin close to our vehicles and making a huge racket. Quite a nuisance those creatures, picking apart every rubbish bag and leaving an unbelievable mess in their wake.
But this stretch of road has something more on offer. I have travelled a lot of passes on my 40.000km journey; steep ones, mean ones, pot holed ones, rock plastered ones, every sort you can possibly imagine. But I was not prepared for the Saudi passes! These things go straight to heaven or hell, depending which way you go. Oh man! They are steep! Never seen anything like it!
After my Kyrgystan experience, where I have fried off my brakes, I am a bit weary. Therefore going down these passes was a heart stopper for me; not for worry of the decline or those really mean, close and steep curves but for worry for my brakes. There were no safe escape routes should they fail, the only way was downhill.
But when getting to Rijal Almaa, we knew this was really worth it. This is an ancient village, built up a hill, containing multi storey houses, hugging up the hill as they climb up. A place of stunning beauty, nestled into this green valley. What a surprise and exceeding all expectations. I reminded me on those Yemenite architecture which I always wanted to see, but very likely never will.Read more