opisska
rabid twitcher
The 2013 Lonely Planet calls Saudi Arabia "the ultimate frontier of tourism". The country has never been open to leisure travellers, the only western visitors being expats and businessmen - generally anyone with some other excuse to be there outside of simple curiosity. Much has changed in the last few years - SA now issues tourist visa online without any hassle (and, as ot turns out, also without any costs as apparently the payments did not go through, which however did not stop the issuance of the visas). Moreover a lot has changed internally - the changes are actually so fast that it's utterly confusing, because a lot of rather recent info you find is no longer valid - the biggest confusion stemming from the recent change of which days comprise the weekend! In more useful terms the changes also include no longer needing to prove your marriage to get a mixed room in a hotel, ability to get fuel and food during the times of prayers and a relaxed dress code for women, which only asks for the shoulders and knees to be covered (which my wife would have anyway). The only annoyances left are the segregation of genders in some establishments (which we did not really test except for the Farasan ferry and do not thoroughly understand) and the silly need to swim in clothes (which however wasn't that annoying thanks to the warm and dry climate where everything dries on you instantly anyway).
In general, visiting Saudi Arabia was easier than I ever thought. I have heard stories of hostilities to tourists but that cannot be more removed from out experience: everyone was either indifferent or friendly - sometimes even too friendly and eager to chat (without having any common language) to the point of disturbing our nature observations - and at the one moment we really needed help (when I forgot to turn off the lights and drained the battery), the first person we came across immediately helped us.
In 19 days in SA, we have recorded 200 bird species, from which 34 are gWP ticks and from those 19 were global lifers. For a birder that has never been to Arabia, the potential would be even much higher, but we have been to Oman, Kuwait and Jordan, so we have already seen a lot of the species. Even though the country is still rarely visited, birding sites in the southwest,where the local endemics live, are well known, marked on eBird, and there are comprehensive reports describing them. Finding most targets was easy even though some popular sites are currently closed for various reasons. We found all of the targeted Asir mountain specialities except for the local population of African Pipit, which is probably not really present in "winter" and the only major miss was in the lowlands where we failed to find any Arabian Golden Sparrows, but that was somewhat expected as they have not been seen in a while. A major score on the other hand is the observation of Red-footed Booby from the Farasan ferry which might be country first. We also found nearing Red-knobbed Coots on a dam in the highlands, which is also probably the first nesting record for SA.
For the 19-day trip we rented a sedan (which was surprisingly high-clearance and that was very useful) and mostly camped - camping is allowed anywhere in SA where it's not restricted for nature protection or other reason and it's massively popular also among locals. There are many public toilets and each stall includes a "mini-shower" which, albeit originally meant for toilet hygiene, allows you to wash yourself anywhere, making wild camping in the desert much more pleasant. Only in the Jizan lowlands we took hotels for 4 nights because the area is densely inhabited and nighttime temperatures even in February do not descend below 25 degrees.
The entire adventure cost only about 800 EUR per person (not being charged for the visa was helpful) - the Wizzair flights from Vienna are insanely cheap, the car rental is reasonable (even though the car was in a shaky condition), petrol costs next to nothing and cheap fast food is widely available even in small villages.
I will talk about some birds in the following posts.
In general, visiting Saudi Arabia was easier than I ever thought. I have heard stories of hostilities to tourists but that cannot be more removed from out experience: everyone was either indifferent or friendly - sometimes even too friendly and eager to chat (without having any common language) to the point of disturbing our nature observations - and at the one moment we really needed help (when I forgot to turn off the lights and drained the battery), the first person we came across immediately helped us.
In 19 days in SA, we have recorded 200 bird species, from which 34 are gWP ticks and from those 19 were global lifers. For a birder that has never been to Arabia, the potential would be even much higher, but we have been to Oman, Kuwait and Jordan, so we have already seen a lot of the species. Even though the country is still rarely visited, birding sites in the southwest,where the local endemics live, are well known, marked on eBird, and there are comprehensive reports describing them. Finding most targets was easy even though some popular sites are currently closed for various reasons. We found all of the targeted Asir mountain specialities except for the local population of African Pipit, which is probably not really present in "winter" and the only major miss was in the lowlands where we failed to find any Arabian Golden Sparrows, but that was somewhat expected as they have not been seen in a while. A major score on the other hand is the observation of Red-footed Booby from the Farasan ferry which might be country first. We also found nearing Red-knobbed Coots on a dam in the highlands, which is also probably the first nesting record for SA.
For the 19-day trip we rented a sedan (which was surprisingly high-clearance and that was very useful) and mostly camped - camping is allowed anywhere in SA where it's not restricted for nature protection or other reason and it's massively popular also among locals. There are many public toilets and each stall includes a "mini-shower" which, albeit originally meant for toilet hygiene, allows you to wash yourself anywhere, making wild camping in the desert much more pleasant. Only in the Jizan lowlands we took hotels for 4 nights because the area is densely inhabited and nighttime temperatures even in February do not descend below 25 degrees.
The entire adventure cost only about 800 EUR per person (not being charged for the visa was helpful) - the Wizzair flights from Vienna are insanely cheap, the car rental is reasonable (even though the car was in a shaky condition), petrol costs next to nothing and cheap fast food is widely available even in small villages.
I will talk about some birds in the following posts.
