We didn’t expect much from this stop, but to our surprise, we found a lovely old town with a collection of old mud houses built with adobe, clay, and mud. Most of them were completely demolished, but some survived the rain torrents and were renovated. Parking location – Uyun...
We made a short stop at partial excavations of a major oasis city along the pilgrimage road (Darb Zubaydah) from Baghdad to Makkah. When the Abbasid Caliphs took power in 750, one of their first major decisions was to move the capital of the Caliphate from Damascus to Kufa in...
We finally made it to the probably most famous rock formation in the Al Ula region. We were lucky enough to meet a friendly guy, Saud, with his old 2WD Nissan, who drove us around the desert rock formations for a couple of hours (50 SAR tip). We saw a Chinese Dragon, a Baby Elephant, a...
We were stupid enough to follow news from the end of the year 2022 that Khaled Al-Enazi, a Saudi professional photographer from AlUla, spotted a 550-million-year-old formation in the shape of a fish. We followed Google Navigation and parked our truck on the side of the road. Then, it took...
After a tough week at the Dakar Rally 2024, when we didn’t get much sleep, we decided to revisit the Al Ula oasis. We were here last time just eight months ago, and to our surprise, a lot has changed here. The entrance gate to the old town disappeared, and several other parts of the...
We followed Dakar Rally to Yanbu via road #328, then drove to visit our friends in Umluj. From Umluj, we took a more exciting road, #8888, back to Al Ula. So, the photos in this gallery are from several days of driving through this western region of Saudi Arabia.
On the shores of the Red Sea is another new beach destination referred to as the Maldives of Saudi Arabia. The 104 little islands north of the town of Umluj are all about white sands and ancient swaying palms. It is a future diver´s paradise with pristine and almost virgin territory...
After the Dakar Rally final ceremony, we slept on the Dakar beach, and the following day, we moved to Old Yanbu. Yanbu’s history dates back at least 2,500 years, when it was a staging spot on the spice and incense route from Yemen to Egypt and the Mediterranean region. The remnants...
The 46th edition of the Dakar, the 5th to be organized in Saudi Arabia, has finished after more than 4,700 kilometers of specials and a total distance of almost 8,000 kilometers, which tested the riders, drivers, co-pilots, and crews from the ancient city of Al-Ula to the shores of the...
After following the last race of the Dakar Classic, we moved to the final of the Dakar Rally in Yanbu. In total, 239 vehicles (versus 340 that took start) reached Yanbu, including 96 bikes (vs. 132), 7 quads (vs. 10), 55 Ultimate class cars (vs. 70), 3 Stock class cars (vs. 3), 29...