Disembarking at this ancient port city in Saudi Arabia, Paul sets off on foot for Jeddah’s northern edge, trekking more than 60 miles through a teeming metropolis where the sidewalks are rendered inert by an addiction to the internal combustion engine — and aversion to summer heat. As he walks the vacant streets, Paul documents his urban journey in typical Out of Eden Walk fashion: with words, photographs and video. We invite you to tag along.
Walking Jeddah
Paul Salopek
May 21 2013, 1:45 pm
The hat commutes back to the walk’s starting line in Saudi Arabia, the port of Jeddah.
Paul Salopek
The first major urban trek of the Out of Eden Walk traverses the largest metropolis on the Red Sea: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Stepping off a cargo boat from Djibouti, my head spins. From an African desert ticking with heat — a remote world of dust and villages — I step into a smear of glittering surfaces, mechanical noise, frantic movement. Glass towers soar above 600 square miles of low-slung, indistinguishable beige buildings. Stoplights blink in sequence on asphalt arteries gushing with traffic. My GPS track shows me walking on seawater — evidence of vast land reclamation projects, and part of a 67-billion-dollar construction boom in Saudi Arabia fueled by population growth. Alexander the Great walked here. So did the medieval Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta. So did Lawrence of Arabia. Jeddah’s docks once funneled millions of Hajj pilgrims to the holy city of Mecca. Today it feels like Los Angeles.
I am joined on my concrete safari by my Saudi guide, Mohamad Banounah, a desert survival expert and wildlife photographer. Sami Nawar, Jeddah’s official historian, supports us in a municipal pickup truck. We inch our way north along the Red Sea coast, covering 63 miles over Jeddah’s concrete skin of sidewalks and streets. It will take us three days to reach the city’s desert rim.
May 21 2013, 2:05 pm
Walk Partners
Paul Salopek
Two walking partners at the starting line: Sami Nawar (L), historian of Jeddah, and Mohamad Banounah, desert guide.
May 21 2013, 2:16 pm
Sami Nawar picks his moment to part the sea of traffic near the port.
Paul Salopek
Urban Moses
Our first objective after the industrial port where I made landfall in Arabia: Al Balad, the historic Old City of Jeddah. Our first obstacle: morning rush hour. Historian Sami Nawar wades into the torrent of trucks and cars, talking intensely, absorbed in Jeddah’s past. He holds up his arms like Moses parting the Red Sea. Screeching brakes. Angry honks. Furious gestures. “Craaaazy,” Banounah says. Banounah says this word a lot.
May 21 2013, 2:30 pm
Dhow
Paul Salopek
Sami finds a beached dhow en route to the Old City.
May 21 2013, 2:46 pm
Quarantine
Paul Salopek
Quarantine Street — where pilgrims were once isolated in plague times.
May 21 2013, 3:11 pm
Nasseef House
Paul Salopek
Sami Nawar sharing bread — and stories — in the 106-room Nasseef House in Old Jeddah.
May 21 2013, 4:06 pm
Why hurry?
Mohamad Banounah
Walking Jeddah
Why hurry?
May 21 2013, 4:52 pm
Shadows
Paul Salopek
We and our shadows — setting out from the Old Town with Banounah.
May 21 2013, 4:54 pm
Pigeon
Paul Salopek
Urban sky, with pigeon.
May 21 2013, 5:35 pm
Banounah seeks relief from the heat.
Paul Salopek
Banounah
Banounah seeks relief from the heat.
May 21 2013, 5:45 pm
59 seconds of Banounah-ese.
Paul Salopek
The Sweet of the Life
59 seconds of Banounah-ese.
May 21 2013, 6:12 pm
Hopscotch
Paul Salopek
Hopscotching through Jeddah.
May 21 2013, 6:14 pm
First Turf
Paul Salopek
First turf since the start of the walk in Ethiopia.
May 21 2013, 6:16 pm
Urban Quicksand
Paul Salopek
Lost on the corniche.
May 21 2013, 6:24 pm
Gardener
Paul Salopek
We follow the corniche, Jeddah’s park-like waterfront. Trimmed grass. Broad, meandering walkways. New playgrounds. Tidy coffee kiosks. Most of it under construction. The beginning of a paradox: There is constant building, refurbishing, expanding, restoring, improving — but we see almost no people outside enjoying the sea. True, it is a workday. And it’s a bit warm. But the signature public space of this great maritime city seems strangely abandoned. After one mile, we encounter our first human being on foot: a friendly Somali gardener.
May 21 2013, 7:50 pm
Urban Oasis
Paul Salopek
Banounah at first urban oasis.
May 21 2013, 9:02 pm
Budget
Mohamad Banounah
Walking past temptation.
May 21 2013, 9:17 pm
Urban Oasis 2
Paul Salopek
Juice shop. Lemonade with mint leaves.
May 21 2013, 10:55 pm
Lunch Prayer
Paul Salopek
Sami brings piety and sandwiches to the beach.
May 22 2013, 12:13 am
Afternoon ritual: Mohammed al Sulaimani relaxes with the birds of the corniche.
Paul Salopek
Birds of the Corniche
May 22 2013, 12:17 am
Corniche Mosque
Paul Salopek
Another rare encounter: a walking human.
May 22 2013, 12:19 am
Drive Thru
Paul Salopek
Grapes and melons delivered through car windows.
May 22 2013, 12:22 am
Privacy
Paul Salopek
A Jeddah legend: Rich Man builds a luxurious villa. Next door, a housing complex sprouts up. Rich Man’s walled realm suddenly violated by prying eyes of poorer high-rise neighbors. Sacrificing the sun, moon, clouds, and stars, Rich Man builds a 2-acre roof over villa.
May 22 2013, 12:40 am
Urban Oasis 3
Paul Salopek
Corner store, Saudi style: 22 balloon toys and and 16 varieties of nuts.
May 22 2013, 5:00 am
Unable to camp on the beach (it is illegal) we spend the first night of the Arabia walk in a backstreet motel. A closet-sized Egyptian diner stokes us with fūl, mutton, eggs — and bottomless glasses of water.
May 23 2013, 2:41 pm
Great Empty
Paul Salopek
Urban landscapes like these make me feel like a future archeologist exploring a post-apocalypse city. Nobody ventures out into the 100-degree heat. Everyone hunkers inside houses and malls, or zips about in cars. In Jeddah I experience the illusion of being a ghost — of moving invisibly through a city of 3 million oblivious people. These are the loneliest miles of the walk since Ethiopia.
May 23 2013, 2:44 pm
Urban Campers
Paul Salopek
They were from the Philippines and made the concrete cozy.
May 23 2013, 3:10 pm
Car Sculpture
Paul Salopek
A hemi-Superman. (He can only lift half a car.) Banounah and public art.
May 23 2013, 3:19 pm
Lost in Translation
Paul Salopek
Fahad loves America — and Saddam Hussein, too.
May 23 2013, 3:45 pm
Great Empty 2
Paul Salopek
“There were no carts, nor any streets wide enough for carts, no shod animals, no bustle anywhere. Everything was hushed, strained, even furtive. The doors of houses shut softly as we passed. There were no loud dogs, no crying children: indeed, except in the bazaar, still half asleep, there were few wayfarers of any kind …” —T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) on the Jeddah of a century ago, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
May 23 2013, 3:49 pm
Stain
Paul Salopek
It was shaped vaguely like Africa.
May 23 2013, 3:51 pm
Paparazzi
Paul Salopek
Sometimes people do stop to snap pictures. I like to think it is the oddity of my cowboy hat that draws attention. But it is probably the novelty of two people walking in the summer’s mid-afternoon glare. “They hate you,” Banounah says after the fourth cab slows beside us and then drives away puzzled. “You are the enemy of all taxi men.”
May 23 2013, 3:56 pm
Sea Watchers
Paul Salopek
Taking in the green Red Sea.
May 23 2013, 3:57 pm
Sea Watchers
Paul Salopek
Taking in the green Red Sea.
May 23 2013, 4:02 pm
Portable Office
Paul Salopek
Sidewalk accounts: septic tank pumper takes a break in the shade of his truck.
May 23 2013, 4:18 pm
Urban Oasis 4
Paul Salopek
The last brewed coffee.
May 23 2013, 4:40 pm
Big Saudi
Paul Salopek
Al jazeera: Planet Saudi Arabia.
May 23 2013, 4:56 pm
Urban Oasis 5
Paul Salopek
A mistake. It had just been irrigated with sewage water.
May 23 2013, 5:19 pm
A street of mansions and not a drop of shade.
Paul Salopek
The Lonely Commons
May 23 2013, 5:48 pm
Worker
Paul Salopek
Another rare human pedestrian: worker pounding a hole in the street.
May 23 2013, 5:50 pm
Shade
Paul Salopek
Why do we love right angles? Squares of shade.
May 23 2013, 6:45 pm
Pathfinder
Paul Salopek
Mubarak Swilim Al Swilim, Vice President of the Arab Air Sports Federation and one of two Saudis to parachute over the North Pole, brings our desert kit. He wants to walk along.
May 23 2013, 6:47 pm
Guardian angels. The Saudi Coast Guard kindly ferries us across Obhur Creek — a sea inlet north of the city core — thus saving us 12 miles of sidetracking. Their platoon of stray cats shares the station’s porch shade. The “coasties” serve us tea.
Paul Salopek
Guardian Angels
May 23 2013, 6:59 pm
Landing
Paul Salopek
An abandoned resort in Obhur welcomes our amphibious landing.
May 23 2013, 11:25 pm
Banounah
Paul Salopek
Banounah in love. North Jeddah.
May 23 2013, 11:50 pm
Off to the exurbs through a wilderness of construction spoil.
Paul Salopek
Urban Frontier
May 24 2013, 1:26 am
House Proud
Paul Salopek
Postmodern homesteads in the desert margin. They looked like they were dropped by helicopter.
May 24 2013, 1:36 am
Urban Badlands
Paul Salopek
Mile after mile of bulldozed landscapes, evidence of one of the world’s greatest real estate booms.
May 24 2013, 1:37 am
Trench Knife
Paul Salopek
A retired National Guard officer, Banounah marched with 30 pounds of gear.
May 24 2013, 12:54 pm
Second camp. Banounah drew a prayer circle around my tarp for protection.
Paul Salopek
Morning Tea
May 24 2013, 4:44 pm
Sami Nawar to the rescue — with Dunkin Donuts.
Paul Salopek
Camel Rendezvous
May 25 2013, 1:41 pm
North
Paul Salopek
For awhile.
May 25 2013, 1:43 pm
Sand
Paul Salopek
A clean slate at last.
