This month's background image is from my spring 2010 trip to the Middle East. This is the Medina Road, the major highway connecting Muslim holy city of Medina, Saudi Arabia to the capital of the country, Riyadh. About 10 miles outside of Riyadh the Medina Road leaves an old wadi (dry river bed) and goes up an escarpment. Once cars go up the escarpment the feeling of one is near Riyadh is felt. In fact, when people go down the escarpment away from Riyadh they feel they are outside the greater capital area and in the more wild, rugged, and free wilderness. Cars will pull off the road and families will leave the cars in order to have picnics in the desert. That is one way Riyadhians get away from the city and enjoy nature.
5 comments:
This is quite beautiful.
This reminds me of an episode of "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain on American television. In the episode where he traveled through Saudi Arabia he said that a hobby of many is just driving through the desert since gas was reportedly about a dollar a gallon.
Looks like a great trip.
Do you happen to have a higher resolution version of this image?
Ryan L,
Yes I do. E-mail catholicgauze at gmail dot com and I can e-mail it to you.
Beautiful photo! By the way, did you get to enter Medina? I've always been curious about the Islamic holy city.
sgenius,
Thanks for the nice comments on the photo and the marriage. Medina, like Mecca, and is off limit to non-Muslims. The closest I got to the off-limit cities is Jeddah which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) to Mecca.
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