Camel Market and Rock Art

Well hello!

Selling at dawn

Warming their hands on a very chilly morning.

The crane on the truck used to hoist the animals... I have some excellent videos of that.

Organized chaos.

Mom and newborn

Haggling

and complaining.

Our lunch spot

The stunning rock formartions at Jubbah.

Yannis explaining the UNESCO rock art.

A chariot

The lobby of the Holiday Villa.

 Wednesday, January 21st.

We were up at 6:30 when it was only 4 degrees celcius, drove for 20 minutes and arrived at the Buraydah camel market at the crack of dawn where we immediately saw dozens of stalls of camels around an open area where there were hundreds of hobbled camels up for auction. Most of them were laying down but some were standing and there was a cacophony of camel voices and sellers yelling prices and buyers with counter offers. The area was ripe and pungent with camel smells but not as bad as I expected as it was outdoors. After listening to Yannis explain what we were seeing and told where and when to meet, we wandered off. It was fascinating watching the goings on. The camels are auctioned off for meat and the price depends on the quality of the animal and sometimes their breeding stock. Apparently some can go for hundreds or thousands of dollars. I watched as the hobbled animals complained about their bondage and were lifted by cranes onto trucks. Although this looks stressful for the animal, apparently it is safer than in the past when they were manhandled onto vehicles and some legs were broken in the process. But it does illustrate man’s inhumanity to the animals of the world, in particular domestic stock that we raise to eat. There were very young camels still suckling from mothers; camels tethered back to back to control them; male camels drooling with foamy saliva, which apparently attracts females; camels of all colours from white to beige to dark browns; and many men (only men) from different tribes and skin colour dressed in a variety of warm weather clothing buying and selling. The market is held early in the morning to avoid the extreme heat of the hot months, but was decidedly cool this morning and the men were often huddled around fires warming their hands. In all aspects it was an amazing visit of sensory overload. All in all an experience and a half! We returned to our Best Western Hotel for breakfast. What a juxtaposition of environments.

An hour later we boarded our bus and headed north-west for a four hour drive to Jubbah through mostly flat featureless scrub land. There was evidence of some farming but a lot of it looked neglected or abandoned. Eventually we stopped at a gas station where there was a mosque that had relief stations for men and women. There was also a grocery store there and we were encouraged to buy a few things for our lunch. We drove out of town and found a picnic spot on top of a dune. The weather was still very cool, about 10 degrees but the view was quite spectacular on a sunny day with blue skies. After that we drove to Jubbah where we visited the UNESCO heritage site. At the welcome centre we were offered a small cup of coffee and dates as a welcome. We were given a short talk on the site accompanied by a video showing the highlights. Then we walked around the stunning rock formations looking at the many pictographs that were created over the millenium. We reboarded our coach and backtracked to Ha’il and our hotel for the night. The last hour of the drive was in the dark and it was interesting to see the lights of the city as we approached. We past a large Turkish style mosque which I would have liked to check out… What an incredible hotel, the Holiday Villa is a bit of Saudi opulence in the desert. After settling in I went for dinner in the hotel with Darren, from Tasmania and David from the UK. We sampled the ample variety of foods focusing on local delicacies and had a good yack about some of our travels. Back to the room to update this and off to bed.