Searching for the Edge of the World

Did you know that gas costs less than water here in Saudi Arabia? It is literally about 45 cents a gallon. That makes renting a car extremely useful. We had heard of a place called the Edge of the World located about an hour or two northwest of Riyadh. We rented an SUV for 500 riyals which, when divided amongst seven of us, came to be about 17 dollars for the day. Just about anything in the wilderness here is difficult to find. I get the feeling locals don't care too much for a cool desert scene and whatnot. We looked up directions online and almost all of them accompanied stories of people getting lost on the way. So to keep up tradition we did the same.

This is us getting lost in the desert. We knew we were heading to the Edge of the World so we figured if we drove in the right direction we would eventually get there. We were wrong.

These twin mountains were one of the only landmarks we had to guide us to our destination. At one point in our wanderings we came across a road that was pretty narrow along a small cliff. There was a bit of tension as we drove along wondering if we would go over. I'm sure we would have lived if the SUV had fallen. Luckily it didn't. We passed many camels along the way just feeding on plants. We even passed a number of Saudi families camping which I have heard is popular to do. They say that the families will go out into the desert and have camel bbq's together.

We finally found our second landmark, a dam (which we assume fills up in rain season?) and that led to a gate with police vehicles but nobody was there to check us. We continued our drive through the desert and then drove to what we thought might be the Edge of the World.

Above we are checking it out to see if this was the right place. It was. The huge cliff gave it away.

This is me, living on the edge!

Now I am contemplating the vastness of the burning desert sands of Arabia.The place was really beautiful and we decided to go on a little hike and explore. Everything about this place reminded me so much of Utah and the hikes we would often go on. Below is Sam, our faithful driver.

The picture below is of me. This is one of my favorite pics of the day because it looks so endless.

Below is the entire scene. Extremely beautiful stuff!

Here is another pic below. This one is of Chris. He decided to go all the way out. I waited an took a few pictures of him.

Below is a close up of the valley. We were able to spot a single tent in the vast desert. Perhaps it belongs to some desert bedouins? Its kind of small so look close. Its kind of whitish.

Here is Chris walking back to us.

I hear this cliff edge goes on for about 100 miles.

We thought we might try and recreate the famous scene from Thelma and Louise where they drive into the Grand Canyon, but we thought it might be a little expensive, so we decided against it.

This is us, heading out. I'm really glad we didn't break down in the desert. Our SUV handled itself pretty good. If you plan to travel here in Saudi, its almost best to rent a vehicle rather than take a cab or a train (depending on what you are going to do). We brought plenty of water and our phones which did get reception out here so we felt mostly prepared. It was really good to get out of the city for awhile.

That is all for now. We have one more adventure yet to do before the break ends (Inshallah)