The latter part of this year being the only time we could vacation meant that we had a lot of vacation to use in a short amount of time. As the year comes to an end trey took an extra week to use up vacation. Which left me with the best kind of dilemma, planning a last minute week long trip wherever we want!
After a long night of searching I decided on Istanbul, Turkey just a short 4hr plane ride and mild start to winter. Doing more and more research got me super excited to do Istanbul, tons of amazing adventures. We were scheduled to fly out at 8am but had to cross the causeway and wanted to be early so we left Las Dunas at 4:30am. It was scary foggy! I don't think the driver could see the end of the hood, and multiple times had to stop just to find a turn or exit a round-about. As we got to the causeway I was relieved that we left early. We hand over our passports and the guy checks our exit visas on the computer. When he gets to Trey's he says "not valid, come inside". My heart sinks but I'm holding out hope that it's just a mistake of numbers. The driver and Trey go inside and he comes back out a short while later, I give him a thumbs up and he shakes his head no. Somehow his visa got cancelled, so that means no leaving Saudi for us, no trip to Istanbul. Driving back to our compound the true weight of living in a closed country hits me.
We were determined to make the best of our forced stay-cation. With assurance that the visa issue was being resolved we enjoyed some lounging days around the compound and a couple adventures out. Since I thought we were going to be gone I threw most of our left overs away, so the grocery store was a must. Towards the end of our week of doing nothing I was feeling cabin fever and decided to try and plan a local adventure. After all we are in an amazing foreign country. I looked around and talked with some people and found a town about an hour away that seemed interesting. As I read up about it the have a camel market where people come from all over Saudi to buy racing camels on Thursday, plus in the town is an old fort that is a historical site, and their were really nice mountains with caves you could explore and a local pottery makers onsite. Sounded like a perfect mix for our family. Of course, planning even something as simple as a day trip in Saudi isn't easy. No websites easily explain anything and a lot of information I can find is old. But after piecing together about 15 different sites I feel like I have an idea of what to do. Only wild card left: the driver. This is a rude awakening moment, in Texas I would jump in my car, turn on the gps and go! Here I am at the mercy of a non-English speaking driver to get me there, well atleast he will have a gps (or so I think!)
The day of our trip to Al Hofuf, I wake everyone up early (6am) because the camel market starts early and I want to see it while it's busy. I've read cool things about it and want to see them picking up the camels with forklifts. I go out and meet the driver and again confirm he knows where we are going, he says yes. We start driving and he has to call and ask where the camel market is ::Warning sign #1::, we drive on and finally exit the freeway and turn down a dirt road. In front of us are bins of sheep and men standing around with hay all around. I ask him where we are going and he says this is camel market. NO CAMEL in sight. Frustrated I tell him nevermind just go on the Al Hofuf and we will do the rest of our plans. ::Warning sign #2:: He instead rolls down his window and begins speaking Arabic to a gentlemen and asks us "How many kilos camel we want". After much refusing I get my point across that we did not come to buy a camel (or so I think!). Another 30 min goes by and we get into Al Hofuf, I tell him to take us to the fort and show him the paper with the information, he drives around a minute and then pulls over in a parking lost and calls someone, he's lost again! After sitting there for about 10 min I see a guy walking around and decide I'm going to take matters in my own hands, ignoring Saudi law and talk to this man. I tell the driver to unlock the door and I'm going to talk to that man. He gets out instead talks to the man, after a couple min conversation he gets back in the car and assures me that he knows where we are going. He drives us into an older part of town and stop at a butcher shop with whole and pieces of camel hanging in the window. He's still trying to buy us camel! Again we explain it to him that we want to go to fort and show him the address again. We get the bright idea to ask him to get out his gps (all drivers are supposed to have gps' in their cars) and he replies that he doesn't have one. ::Warning sign #3:: By chance at the next intersection I see the fort in the opposite direction and we head over there. It is an interesting structure and of course closed! Not just closed but gated up and dilapidated. It was such a shame to see how poorly they maintain their historical site. Graffiti carved into the walls, glass and trash everywhere.The driver had dropped us off and told us he was going to get gas and come back to get us. 30 min later we call him and he says he's on his way. When he gets back we are just defeated, tired and hot. He had no idea how to get to the mountain to go to the cave so we gave up in defeat and went home.
Better vacations to come, promise!!
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