Yanbu al Nakhal

Last week,  I had a very interesting day.  A couple of ladies arranged a day trip to a town outside of Yanbu.  There is a town called Yanbu Al Nakhal, which means "Spring of the Date Palms", about 30 miles northeast of Yanbu al Bahr, which means "Spring of the Sea".  It is near the Rahwa Moutains off of a 2 lane road.

After you drive about 10 miles, you come to a plateau, called Al Baydhah,  and can see small green oases surrounded by villages.  

I tried to find info about this area and I found a great site, http://floridapublishing.com/recent-articles/yanbu-al-bahr-oases/.  That is where I got the historical info that follows.

Water was abundant in this area 30 years ago, but there has been little rain since then.  The climate has changed.  As you drive through the area, you see large areas of old orchards of dead palm trees.  They have no palm fronds, appear dried out and often are bent over.

A thousand years ago, this valley was in its prime.  It was dotted with more than 300 thriving villages.  Today, there are only 24.  Oral history from the villagers indicates that the valley was dotted with neatly planted and watered farms.  This area was well known for wild date farms and sweet and sour lemon orchards.  Now, it is known for growing watermelons, henna and vegetables.  In the market, we saw bags of dried henna for sale.

Thousands of years ago, channels were built to bring water from the mountains to the valley.  There are thousands of channels around this valley.  They can usually be found near a village or farm.  Water was available to the farms even during droughts in the valley.   But this water was not enough for the farms to be successful.  They needed to store water when it was plentiful.  For many centuries, drinking water was carried by camel and donkey to stone lined watering places that were built approximately every 6 miles on this plateau (Al Baydhah).  They built 3 ft stone walls around the water channel to keep out sand and debris.  These water storage places were replaced when the government built fresh water pipelines.  

But they say that you can still see these abandoned watering places as you drive down the highway.  I saw walled plots of land that I had thought that were cemeteries.  I had read that cemeteries in KSA are simply a plot of land surrounded by a wall between 5-6 ft high.  There are no markers on the graves.  So, as we drove around these walled areas in Yanbu al Nakhal, I assumed they were cemeteries.  I found it strange that they were so many cemeteries in the area.  When we saw one of these walled areas by the old village that we explored, we asked the drivers, one of which who lived in this area,  what was the purpose of this walled area.  They didn't know what it was.  Now, I wonder if they were the old watering areas, but I will try to get my husband to check with one of the Saudis with whom he works.  

The article says that the villages were designed to have about 100 homes and to house 3,000 people.  That seems odd unless a lot of people were living on the street or not in homes, because that would be 30 people per home and these homes were pretty small.  Anyway, the villages used to receive lots of rain for 4 months and then they used the water from the channels for the rest of the year.

The houses are made of mud block masonry and were topped with palm thatched roofs.  They were usually built on high knolls overlooking the date orchards.

Often they were ringed with rock walls which were as high as the water level that would rise during the rainy season.

Our next stop included what every trip has to have-a stop at a camel farm.  :)

Then, we stopped at the town market.  A few shops were open. 

Here is my purchase.  An Arabic coffee pot, called a dallah.  I had been looking for one that was not made in China and was not brass.  Also, I bought some nesting containers.  I found exactly what I wanted here.

There was a very nice shopkeeper here and I think that he had a good day!

Our next stop was a dam.  It was unusual because there was no water there.  One of the ladies who had been there two weeks ago, said there was water then.  The ladies felt that it must be a dam for flash flooding.

We went to another old village and I love the water markings on the wall.  It looked like a surreal painting.

I haven't revisited this topic in awhile.  But here was a toilet:

Then we had a lovely picnic in the desert.  I didn't take any pictures because I was too hungry by that time.  :)