A walk along an ancient shore

Apparently this site is not called the 'Edge of the World' but I rather think it should be.

The landscape that I have seen so far has been very flat, with sand dunes on the edge of town, but I had heard of the drop of the escarpment where you can look down into a deep valley. When we received the invitation to go camping with friends, I didn't know that this is where we would be headed!

We drove about an hour out of town, through a wadi which was at first cultivated with stands of palm trees, and then increasingly sparsely populated the further we travelled. Finally we saw only camels and thorn bushes, then we turned off somewhere and came to a stop at the most incredible precipice. The ground was simply littered with fossils of corrals and shells and what the kids told us where the fabled 'Saudi Diamonds'.

Saudi diamonds are quarz crystals that can be cut to look exactly like real diamonds. I have seen these in jewellery. The stories go that they can be picked up in the desert at certain places. Well, we certainly found bucket loads of what I think were quartz crystals. For all we know we can now retire in luxury!


Fossil hunting was certainly a highlight. Once again, we came home with quite a large number of rocks. I wish I could find out more about the natural history of the region and the ancient seabed that has left behind such treasures and beautiful camping spots.

We were on our way to Turkey when...

Life happens when you're making other plans, they say.

Rean's second bit of annual holiday was to fall over the Eid al-Adha holiday, a week during which the willingness of the prophet ʾIbrāhīm (Abraham) to sacrifice his young first-born son Ismā'īl (Ishmael)^a as an act of submission to God's command and his son's acceptance to being sacrificed, is celebrated (Wikipedia). Since we had missed out on our much dreamed of overseas holiday during the first Eid  (Eid al fitr) holiday, we were going to make up for it by going on a holiday to Turkey. I had worked out my pocket money and planned which shopping to do where, which were our must see places, got the guidebooks, travel advice from everyone we knew who had been there, tickets, bookings, transfers, taxis. You get the picture...

Two weeks before we were due to leave Mieke started getting sick. And she got worse and worse. We nebulised, humidified, self medicated, rested, but nothing worked. At last we decided to go look for a doctor. Our medical aid doesn't cover us for the smart 'foreign' english speaking hopsitals. Rean had to wade through lists of local, usually non english speaking hospitals, before we finally found one quite close to us. The doctor who saw us had lived in the States for 16 years, so he spoke english well, and we felt very comfortable with him. He said,'don't worry, she should be better within two days' and gave us paracetamol and ibuprofen syrop to alternate every three hours, day in and day out. But still her fever climbed. By now I had not sleapt for more than three hours a night for about two weeks, and Mieke was really sick. We were really worried about her.

So back to Doctor Basel. He just shook his head and had her admitted to the hospital. The next morning I saw on the breakfast delivery slip that she was diagnosed with pneumonia. It was not a nice experience. They tried six times before they could find a vein to put a drip in. Then to get her to stay still enough to prevent the drip line from pulling out of her foot! That was definitely a challenge.By now we had cancelled our trip and just tried to survive the troubles of the moment.

 Mieke and I spent two whole days and a night there. The antibiotics and whatever else they gave her started to work and Dr Basel felt we could be discharged on wednesday evening. The first leg of our flight to Turkey left at 4am that next morning. Should we go or should we stay? 'Go!' said the doctor, it is a great opportunity, just keep Mieke warm, she should be fine. Hmm, what a choice to make! By now I hadn't sleapt much for three weeks and I was just at the end of my line.

We decided to trust the doctor, and uncancelled our cancellations, got home from the hospital at 7pm that evening, put Mieke to bed, packed and went to sleep. At 1:30am we got up and went to the airport. Halfway through the long long cues, Rean told me he hadn't brought our entry/exit visas! We tried to sweet talk them into letting us through without our visas at the emigration counter. They might have done it, but no way would we have been able to get back into the country. So at 5am that morning, we caught a taxi back home. My only though was of overwhelming relief. Now we could all rest and hopefully sleep!

We spent a week just lounging around at home. Mieke slowly got over the illness and her hospital experience. Turkey was just not meant to be at this time of our lives. Fortunately we managed to get some of our money refunded.

We got news two days ago that Rean's contract won't be renewed, so we are coming home around the middle of December. Thoughts of turkish shopping still haunt me. Obviously that is not going to happen any time soon now. But I'm putting it on my bucket list.

But first, a thousand and one other things....