Just jetting off to Jeddah…

 

Flying has been carrying on here with no particular change to the routine. Up before dawn, airborne at dawn, day over by 10h30. Its getting warmer every day which means we can carry less and less fuel and so production has slowed a bit. But we’re in high ground and in a few weeks we should be moving to lower ground where hopefully things will pick up again.

Those are the bad boys we’re surveying up and over	Early morning landing at a remote fuel cache

I was asked to attend a meeting last week in Jeddah, between the mine company, our company, air traffic control and the military bigwig who controls the area. As one can imagine, Saudi is very carefully controlled – overstay your visa by even a day and you can be fined the equivalent of R23 000. Crime is mostly non-existent and you can see why! Still, quite a pleasure to be able to leave things lying around and not have to worry about them being there when you get back.

This is the sun! Dust so thick that I could look at the sun for 45mins after sunrise with no discomfort	Dusty Jeddah from the air – aerial photos suck in this country

Anyway, so I was flown to Jeddah for the meeting. The flight was early in the morning but that allowed me the day before the meeting to do a little window shopping around town. When I boarded the flight there were three individuals in handcuffs sitting in the back row with 6 guards accompanying them. So I guess crime hasn’t been completely eradicated. Also, when we landed in Jeddah (at the most confusing airport I’ve ever seen – 3 parallel runways and terminals scattered all over) the bus to transport us to the terminal appeared full in the front, so I walked to the back door to climb in there, only be confronted with a mass of ninjas. The back third of the bus was where the black-cloaked women had to go while the men occupied the front section.

One of the small lounges in our Sands Hotel in Jeddah	Cool mirrored passage

I had heard that Jeddah was the place to buy electronics – but that seems to only apply to laptops and cameras. Needless to say a few shopping malls and some civilisation were a great change from the sand and dust of the desert.

Again, I was amused to watch the whole pray time procedure. It seems that one needs to avoid being outside during prayer time. The streets get very quiet and in the mall that I was busy wandering around all the stores have to closed (like locked up with security gates lowered) and the patrons are ushered out onto the concourse for the 30mins of prayer time. Then, most shops remain closed until 16h30 when they open for the evening, so shopping in Saudi is an evening affair.

Random giant bicycle statue – don’t think I actually saw a real bicycle	One of many Jeddah mosques

The details are boring but the meeting resulted in a list being provided to us of who in the airforce needs to be present at the NEXT meeting set for 10th March in Riyadh! In other words, a fairly large waste of time. Since we had had to book a room in the Radisson Blu hotel and the room was supplied with snacks, I stocked up on muffins, pastries and fruit and skipped lunch.

Our psychotic driver (same as my arrival) and a military person waiting for meeting	One of the lounges in the Radisson

Pierre (Chief Pilot) was leaving Jeddah for South Africa that evening and since he has just bought a Harley back home we made a trip to Harley Davidson, Jeddah which was something interesting for Saudi. The driving here is so bad and so reckless that people die daily on the roads. Why anyone would want to hurry that along by riding a motorbike on these roads, I don’t know. And truthfully, most motorbike riders in Jeddah ride without any gear or even helmets! Now before anyone has a smart-arse comment – the drivers make our taxi drivers look like grandmothers in a foreign town.

America is very firmly entrenched in Saudi – hundreds of American shop chains and car models	The sneaky pic of the 12h30 office prayer

We stopped off at the office of our local agent for a quick logistics meeting and were again caught by prayer time. In this instance, I was sitting in the reception area when three guys walked in with a long carpet, rolled it out and had an impromptu prayer. They were soon joined by everyone else in the office and I got a very sneaky photo or two of them kneeling/standing/kneeling and chanting. Interesting to see to be honest.