A day trip to remember - Al Wahbah crater

It's not that often that we get to 'escape' our confides during normal working weeks (outside of holidays of course). It's also not often we get the chance to get out into Saudi Arabia at large. Luckily this weekend we got the chance, a chance we relished with glee. A work colleague had suggested that we put this trip to the Al Wahbah (like all placenames in KSA it has about three different spellings for the same place) crater in our diaries just before Christmas. He suggested we'd need a break from routine when we got back to the Kingdom after our Christmas holidays, he was right. The same guy was gracious enough to drive both my wife and I plus another friend the 300 km's+ to our destination for the day.


I find Saudi an increasingly hard place to describe, to nail down, and I suppose that is its greatest compliment. You see things here that you'd imagine you would see here, but then you constantly see things you wouldn't - and needless to say, it's not all desert. Yes, there is a lot of sand in the place (& camels) but that doesn't begin to touch on the countryside you encounter on a road trip. The flashes and spurts of green grass, the sparse hedges and scrubs that cling to the roadways, the curious hodgepodge of buildings that you find in the middle of nowhere. The little self-sufficient towns and villages, the spread of small businesses, the random tents, the beautifully designed mosques-both big and small. The curious range of road vehicles both new and old, both roadworthy and not. The manic drivers with a love of fearless overtaking, the boundless curiosity and warm welcomes from the locals.


The road(s) to the crater where summed up as long and straight with a mix of smalls hills and distant mountains and long flat sand plains, dotted with towns both large and small. What would be easily a major tourist attraction (complete with a welcome center, gift shop, t-shirts etc.) in the Western world, is in this country found down a long non-descript road/lane that isn't exactly signposted, in fact, it isn't signposted. We followed the narrow track for about three minutes pausing to give way to a camel train crossing the road when these long abandoned flag/light poles shot up suddenly from the barren ground. These poles signalled the entrance to what seemed like a long forgotten attempt at an entrance to a tourist attraction.

Suddenly the road stops and there it is in front of you, a marvel of geology that takes your breath away on first and subsequent viewings; not to mentioning taking it away as your trek to and fro from its flat arid base. We had an unofficial local greeting party at the crater in the form of an exuberantly friendly chap and his stern accomplice. Now, when a stranger randomly approaches you offering you drinks you usually politely decline or at worst call the police, in Saudi Arabia, you gratefully accept his offer. The ladies were mere steps away from a panicked dash to put on their abayas but all he wanted to do was say hello to us and share some of his Arabic coffee. He was keen to interact with some 'hawadgas' and his friend was equally keen to capture the moment via his phone. We all greeted and thanked each other in broken Arabic and English. It was another instance for all those back home that dispells any beliefs that Saudis might be aggressive and hostile folk, they're simply not.

The crater itself is either a result of a meteor strike or an ancient volcanic eruption the jury is still out on its creation. However, none of this matters when you're looking at it head-on. Imagine a large naturally crafted coliseum of amphitheatre surrounded by nothing but desert. We had the whole place to ourselves bar a handful of passing visitors we met leaving when we arrived and some people we passed ascending from the bottom of the crater on the way back to our cars. Actually, that's a lie we did meet a beetle and a lizard on the bottom. Which had the feel of a giant salty bowling green. According to Wikipedia, it's 250 m deep and 2km in diameter, the bottom of which is covered with white sodium phosphate crystals, in other words, it's fucking impressive.

We passed our time there, talking, hiking, eating, playing football plus taking a copious amount of touristy type pictures and panoramas. It was a nice way to spend a day with friends away from our current setting. It was also nice to see a bit more of this fascinating country's countryside.