A Small Desert Adventure

On Thursday morning I took the dogs out to the edge of camp to see the desert.

In the desert, looking north back to the Dhahran Hills housing area in camp.

The southernmost road at the edge of camp. Looking to the southeast. Housing on the left, desert on the right.

Roads into camp are heavily guarded but as you can see, the camp is accessible from the desert by off-road vehicles. This isn’t quite the security risk it might seem because almost every transaction in and off camp requires that you produce your Aramco ID if not your iqama as well.

There isn't much trouble someone could get into on foot in camp. Most old camp hands leave their cars and houses unlocked all the time (I can't quite bring myself to do that and so lock my house when I leave for the day). Punishment for most crimes is death so the risk of theft or other mayhem of that sort is very low.

The guards at the security gates wear bulletproof vests and are heavily armed. There is a main set of gates at all of the roads leading into camp and a second set of gates and a fence entirely surrounding the “core complex”, the set of administrative, exploration, development, and engineering buildings where I work, and yet another set of gates at the entrance to the larger housing areas within camp. ID has to be produced at all of these and before you can get into the "core complex" admin area, you have to send your bags through a scanner.

There is a Saudi military base not far out from camp to the south as several large Aramco production and refining facilities. I can see the lights of these installations glowing at night.
But the housing area isn’t entirely fenced off and as I mentioned, the back end of it is open to the desert.

Looking north back into Dhahran Hills housing. Mimi on her tether.

[I discovered after downloading these photos that I’ve dropped my camera one too many times so you’ll have to excuse the quality. I’ll try to get into Al Khobar one night next week and get a new camera.]

Camp is heavily landscaped but wherever you see a living plant there is a drip or irrigation line running directly to it. There is even an 18-hole golf course glowing green as can be!

I took these next pictures on Friday morning. There is a paved walkway around most of the golf course that is just behind my building. I take the dogs out on it twice a day, half an hour in the morning and an hour every evening. About 10 minutes' walk from my building, there is a small jebel at the edge of the golf course. We climbed up it this morning to get the big view.

Looking north over the golf course. Main camp is on the other side of the golf course, Dhahran Hills housing is behind me.

Looking west along the boundary of Dhahran Hills housing which is to my left. You can see the path around the golf course with some housing to the left. My building is just around the curve in the path.

Looking south back into the center of Dhahran Hills housing. This housing area is separated from main camp by the golf course. You can see the circum-golf course path edged by rows of landscaping below then a main road, Rolling Hills Blvd, then the housing area. Beyond that is the desert area where we were on Thursday morning.

All of this lush greenery is watered with reclaimed water. They used to spray untreated water out into the desert in the “spray fields.” Now they clean the water up a bit, hopefully removing the nasty bits such as E. coli and other pathogens, and return that to camp for landscaping.

The former spray fields represent a wonderful place to take dogs, or so I was told. So I decided to check it out on Thursday morning.

We got there at 6am just as the sun was coming up. It is always hazy in the mornings because there is a lot of moisture in the air at night (no rain, so if native plants can't survive on dew they don't do too well).

Harry and Mimi investigating a pile of trash in the desert at sunrise. The Saudi military base is visible in the background. Taking pictures of things like that is strictly forbidden so I'm skirting the rules a bit with this picture.

Harry got to run free but I put Mimi on a 30-foot steel tether line (I would be embarrassed as a dog trainer to admit that she doesn't have a recall except that she's a 4 yr old fox terrier; that pretty much says it all). That cable tether still gave her plenty of running room. Here are some more photos.

Harry baptizing a little tiny jebel.

Running along a road in the former spray fields. Looking west.

I had been told there are wild dogs living in the desert and, to my surprise, I saw two of them on Thursday morning. They have the body plan of a saluki but have relatively short coats. Both of them were identical, light beige/tan on top, erect ears, longish snout, narrow faces, longish tail with some feathers, white bellies and white feet. They were pretty tall, maybe twice as tall as Harry, but not massive or heavy boned. Both of the ones I saw took off when they spotted us. I had also been told that they can be aggressive but I don’t want to test that theory at all. Sorry, no pictures, but I can probably get some at another time.

Blooming frangipani and agave.