Camping at Al Shafa - September

Camping at Al Shafa
September 2005


The last weekend in September Dorelle and I joined the Natural History Society of Jeddah for an overnight camping trip in the Al Shafa area. Marwan, the coordinator, located a beautiful spot up in the El Gazel Wadi about 50 minutes from where we live in Al Hada.

Here are some pictures of the surrounding area. It was a wonderful spot with no one else around and no garbage! Maybe we were on private land because it is rare to have a road go to a nice spot and not have garbage. Well, the road to the site wasn’t paved but the car in our group made the tricky parts with no problem. Wyn, the driver of the car, even did it with one hand on the wheel and the other hand holding on to the roof like he was on a casual Sunday drive in the country. I watched from the rear as I was in a SUV and wondered how the car would ever make it up and over the rocks or through the sand traps. Turns out Wyn lived in Kenya for 2 years and went 4 wheeling all over the place and this was a piece of cake for him. Maybe this dirt road does stop the local traffic from coming up here and leaving their piles of trash after they have had their picnic.

The group consisted of Marwan a dental technician, Edwin a manager at a manufacturing plant from Lebanon, Wyn a sugar engineer from Wales, Susanna a nurse from Germany and Dorelle from South Africa and me. We were here for about 24 hours and our time was divided between relaxing, eating, hiking, and sitting by the fire. Wyn brought a custom made bbq on its trail run. The bbq had extendable legs and was easy to set up and take down. As you can see from the photos we camp in style.

We commented on all the stone walls in this area. Rumor has it if you build stone walls around property you like and no one claims it in 5 years, then it becomes yours. We did see a beautiful farm by the camp site. It was a small farm on a hillside with apricot trees but there was a huge bolder on it and it formed a cave with another boulder. There is a picture of it above. It was a wonderful weekend. The next camping trip will be at the end of November down on the beach south of Jeddah.