A Short Walk to Nowhere

There is small, open gate in the fence along the road from Dammam Airport to Al Qatif. You leave the car there, next to a mobile telephone mast.

You are below sea level at this point. It’s marginal, but you are just below. It is a natural basin at the edge of the desert. Which explains why water gathers there in a lagoon. A lagoon surrounded by reed beds that, undisturbed, grow in excess of nine feet tall.

It is barely past dawn and the start of a short walk to nowhere.

Soon after I arrived in Saudi, a friend posted a comment about a picture I posted of the Dammam Riyadh highway suggesting that it lacked the romance of Lawrence of Arabia. He was right. It did and where I live, it does. The mental image of the desert is of vast rolling peaks and valleys of golden sand. Of light and shadow. These exist. There are thousands of square miles of them. Vivid reds and yellows, stretching toward and beyond the horizon toward forever. Most are to the south of Arabia in the Empty Quarter. The south of Saudi and the edges of UAE, Oman and Yemen. But out in the Eastern Province, it isn’t really so. Its pancake flat and a dull yellow brown. Worse still, it is regularly littered with building rubble, scrap metal, food waste and plastic bags. One day, I swear, I will find a faded Sellanby bag from South Harrow which I will save and keep. Treasure.

Sellanby was a 2nd hand record store in Harrow.
It's plastic bags were legendarily strong and long lasting. When it closed, 1,000+ students had to swallow their pride and buy proper bags to carry there stuff. It was a sad day. 

Despite the above, I still hold a romantic notion that the desert will offer me drama; offer me the long shadows of dunes at dusk and dawn. Failing that, it’ll offer me the unexpected. Which is what led to me heading out close to Dammam airport for a walk on an early morning in early July. I’d read about a place on a great Saudi Birdwatching site called, unsurprisingly, “Birds of Saudi Arabia”. Out of the way, remote and isolated. Heaven.

Birds of Saudi Arabia Website - see note below

It starts in low drifts of sand with grasses and roots holding it together. Occasional exposed stretches of sand show tell-tale signs of lizards. Twists in the sand showing the twists of their bodies and tails. Fragile and small paw prints – hand prints – showing the direction of travel.

The paw prints bring relief. You would rather be walking in knee deep grass risking a casual encounter with a lizard than a snake. I’ve left my antivenom at home. Come to think about it, I don’t have any antivenom.

Francis, my ever intrepid if vaguely unwilling companion, stops to draw my attention to the tracks. We argue for a while about whether they are snake or lizard tracks. I think that he is trying to convince me that they are snakes, so that I will relent, give up and go home back to bed. He is clearly knackered and his heart isn’t in it. But I remain steadfast and bullish.

Walk on.

After five minutes you are up close to the reeds; a formidable, verdant barrier in a barren waste. Tall, lush and thick. You cannot see through the barrier but can tell that the lagoon is behind them, but only because of the myriad, non-plussed alarm calls of one hundred invisible birds rising around you.

Heading north you look and fail to find a gap in the reeds bar one that is waterlogged and unpassable to idiots with unsuitable footwear. Sure, Peter O’Toole would flounce off through the gap, carrying his supplies and camels on his shoulders.

But I am not Peter O’Toole. I am an idiot.

Walk on.

4x4 tracks skirt the edge. The sand is flattened down to concrete. You follow, as it is easy on the feet, and begin to disturb Egyptian Nightjar. One. Two. Four. Sixteen. The numbers are close to becoming exponential. They are sitting, invisible at the side of the track until they rise in silence on long wings that betray their relative small size and silently glide to safety. They start ten meters away from you. They are happy when they reach twenty five, where they settle down again and, static, blend back into the dusty grey brown soil and heat haze. In time you grow use to them and you start to pick their shapes out and focus on their wide, watching eyes. Watching them, watching you. You walk, guessing how many steps it will be before they are again spooked into rising above you to twist and turn their way to safety.

The car tracks break away from the reed beds.

Stretching to the horizon, two tyre width strips lead the way. You follow and become increasingly aware of the damp presence of water. The soil surface is dried and caked. Salt crystals have formed at the surface. The top soil cracks and crunches under foot exposing a dark brown undersoil that is sponge like. Where you pick the wrong place, the top soil sinks to an ankle depth. If you stand still, you seem to sink further. If you hurry through, you trip yourself up. It is abundantly clear that you you’re walking on a dried lake bed that appears to have no boundary or border.

So you choose the car tracks. Progress improves as you follow the crushed soil lines. You walk, single file in near pigeon steps onward toward the horizon where you see sand dunes, proper sand dunes waiting. Light and shadow. White and gold.

You walk for fifteen minutes in a straight line and reach the first of the dunes. Unimpressive. You feel cheated at dunes that would look half-hearted in parts of north Norfolk. Even in a low breeze you can see the shifting sands but the presence of thick grasses testify that this is not the dynamic moving dunes of your dreams. But that is where you stop.

The low horizon has already caught you out. What you thought were the start of a range of dunes is merely a low hedge like barrier to another endless and barren salt crusted plain. It seems to stretch for miles, again with the faint promise of sand dunes on the far side. This time, there are no car tracks to aid your trekking.

You are forced into a choice. Onward or bust.

Way behind you, Francis is walking in the opposite direction. Toward his car where he has shade from the fast rising sun, air con, Saudi Aramco Studio 1’s classic rock on the radio and a place to sleep.

Decisions have been made. 

Lawrence of Arabia will have to wait for another day.

Notes

As a rule, when travelling, I tend to look for local ornithology sites. Yes, I am interested in bird life, but generally the sites are great starting points to identify areas to get out and about exploring, often off the beaten track. The Birds of Saudi Arabia website offers not only great tips on locations to watch birds but also posts some great photos that capture nature/natural life in the region. I'd recommend a look.