![]() ![]() I also wondered what it would be like traveling in Saudi Arabia as a woman. ![]() Would I require a male chaperone to move about? What would I need to wear? And most urgently, could I be sure to bring him back some Arabian oils? My husband was intrigued and mildly concerned. After several years of pandemic-dictated sameness, the prospect of journeying into a landscape and culture so different from my own felt compelling - essential, even. When offered the opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia, I leapt at the chance. Then the wind picks up and I wonder just how long the grains of sand that are swirling at my feet have been doing that dance. It is unlike anywhere I have been before. Some combination of the surrounding mountains and the dampening effect of the desert sand creates an unnerving stillness. Stepping outside onto the Bedouin lounge, my personal outdoor patio, the first thing I notice is the quiet. The hotel room I am staying in is a cabana, built in the desert canyons of the Ashar Valley. While not actually another planet, AlUla, an area in the northwest Medina region of Saudi Arabia, some 7,000 miles from my home in Tennessee, is the most otherworldly landscape I’ve experienced. I WONDER HOW many days it might take for me to get used to opening my eyes and gazing upward at sandstone cliffs towering above, the bases of which start 60 feet from my bed. ![]()
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