Trip to Taif (the first)

(This was supposed to have been posted the end of January but stuff happened and the world went loony.)

Son of a gun it was cold. Rookie mistake, I didn't check the weather before I went. Big mistake was not bringing a light jacket with me from the U.S. On the other hand I did have a 'winter' jacket but I did not bring that with me on this trip. It was 5°C (41°F) and I was wearing slacks and a dress shirt (no T-shirt) and we were working in an area that was mostly outside, so, brrr. Fortunately the soldiers at the base brought me some coffee.

Taif is not quite as high up at Abha but apparently they used the same road construction company. On the plus side, someone did seem to learn at least one lesson - the road is divided for almost all of the climb. Same apes but here they are more of a pest and a little less fearsome. The most annoying thing was some guy trying to make me buy a bag of carrots to feed the baboons for 5 riyals (about $1.33 for a 2 LB bag.) I even tried to give him one riyal to go away and/or feed them himself. The Saudi I was with convinced him to leave us alone. 

Ahmed's brother-in-law was an endearing host. He's retired from the Army and he drove us both around the city and bought us dinner at a very nice place in town. His house is a fairly new place and I got to see the 'greeting room' similar to the one I recall from so long ago when I was exploring the Jizan area but much more elaborate (if cold, wish there had been a fire.) I ended up going out into the courtyard to stand in the sun while I waited them to return from Asr prayer.

Ahmed and his brother-in-law

Interesting thing, and we did see a little of it in another location, there has been some research in this area I was reading about in the local paper that someone in a university up here was studying the interactions among these wild apes, cats and dogs. It seems they coexist and cooperate to warn, protect, feed, and (I guess) keep each other company. I guess the cats keep the small vermin in check, the dogs keep the bigger pests away and the baboons play monkey-in-the-middle, so to speak.

It is quite a drop.

 The 'farmer's market' at the top of the hill was very colorful and quite busy. All the stall keepers were very friendly and they do seem to like Americans (and having their pictures taken.) 

This is looking back up the hill.