Saudi Arabia is opening up to tourism – and offers an abundance of historic wonders

Sitting in a black Bedouin tent in the middle of the Arabian desert, I am nibbling on freshly baked bread dipped in mutton fat.

“This was the staple diet of the Bedouins, along with dates,” says our host, handsome in flowing white robes.

On special occasions they sacrificed a goat. Desert hospitality requires that if any stranger comes to your camp, you must feed and drink them for three days.

Puffs of dyspeptic camel arrive; outside, I can see a peregrine falcon gracefully flying into its owner’s arm.

This is Gharameel, in AlUla county, Saudi Arabia, and who would imagine Andy Warhol in this timeless landscape, with his work displayed in a futuristic gallery in the desert?

In the desert landscape of AlUla, Teresa watches horsemen ‘gallop past in a cloud of dust’ (file photo)

However, as part of a drive towards Westernization, we are in for exactly that surprise.

This secretive nation has opened up to tourism, with easy online visas and removing the requirement for women (both local and foreign) to wear the all-covering black abaya.

Such measures, along with driving licenses and better job opportunities for women, are part of ‘Saudi Vision 2030’, a 30-year reform plan aimed at diversifying the economy and presenting a softer, more secular country.

AlUla, 12,500 square miles of desert in the northwest of the country, is the first in a series of planned tourist areas. Seconds after my plane left Riyadh, the modern city dissolves into a sea of ​​sand.

This desert has a rich 7,000-year history, much of which is being discovered for the first time by international archaeologists. Situated at a crossroads of ancient spice and incense routes and later a stopping point on the pilgrimage route between Damascus and Medina, AlUla benefited from various cultural influences.

Hegra is an important stop on the historic Hejaz Railway, built by the Ottomans and bombed by TE Lawrence in World War I.

Now restored as an open-air museum and popular with hot-air balloon enthusiasts, it stands near what in 2008 became Saudi Arabia’s first Unesco World Heritage Site: the remains of the southernmost outpost of the Kingdom of the Nabateans. Guided by Ahmed, a young local Rawi (storyteller), I wander past some 100 house-sized tombs carved into the mountains.

“A few seconds after my plane left Riyadh (pictured), the modern city dissolves into a sea of ​​sand,” writes Teresa.

Hegra is an important stop on the historic Hejaz Railway (pictured), built by the Ottomans and bombed by TE Lawrence in World War I.

Over the course of the week, I walk, climb, and fly overhead in a helicopter (a treat worth paying the extra riyals for) to marvel at holy mountains covered with pre-Islamic scriptures, petroglyphs recording religious offerings, and an ancient Dadanite city today. in excavation.

However, the abundance of archaeological treasures is only part of AlUla’s attractions. Desert culture, as evidenced by a 2.8km heritage trail from Dadan to AlUla Old City, exerts its own magnetism.

Along this sandy oasis trail, between adobe walls and palm-wood gates, four riders on caparisoned horses appear out of nowhere and gallop past in a cloud of dust. A cornucopia of fruit and vegetables is plucked from these oases and we arrive at an orchard tended by a talkative ex-police chief who is back to his roots.

Here, in the scorching heat, freshly picked mint tea, served in a copper teapot, is the perfect restorative before our final lunch push: a feast served in the shadow of the 2,600-year-old AlUla castle.

Abandoned since 1982, the old town’s maze of adobe houses is still carefully restored, centered around a street of restaurants and shops selling local produce.

Teresa wanders around 100 house-sized tombs dug into the mountains of AlUla (above).

Pictured is the abandoned Old City of AlUla, complete with a ‘thicket of mud houses’

Although there are critics of Saudi Arabia, my hosts could not be more kind, courteous and hospitable.

And while traditional culture remains key to AlUla, the future beckons with spectacular new buildings that rise like mirages out of the sand. Chief among these, and Warhol’s temporary home, is the Maraya art center, clad in glass that reflects and fades into the surrounding desert.

But I’m happy to sit under a diamond-studded night sky in Gharameel, eating roast goat, inhaling camel scent, and listening to an astronomer explain how the Bedouin navigated the stars.

The experience is magical. In the words of the great 14th century traveler Ibn Battuta: ‘he leaves you speechless, then he turns you into a storyteller’.