World

Sweltering Saudis Escape With Woollens To Mountainous ‘City Of Fog’

kem haris 2 years ago 3 min read

Al-Namas: As Saudi Arabia swelters in scorching desolate tract temperatures, a few are escaping to the “City of Fog” — a mountainous oasis of cool wherein heat garb is wanted even in summer time season.

Sitting with buddies on a picnic blanket, below mild rain and a thick, swirling mist in Al-Namas, Abdullah Al-Enizi wears a body-hotter over his conventional white gowns to protect towards the chill.

The retreat, 2,800 metres (9,2 hundred feet) above sea degree in Saudi Arabia’s rugged south, is in stark comparison to different elements of the vast, in large part desolate tract u . s . a . wherein summer time season warmth of as much as 50 ranges Celsius (122 ranges Fahrenheit) is an annual challenge.

At Al-Namas, humid monsoon climate maintains temperatures beneathneath 30 ranges Celsius, losing as little as 15 ranges Celsius at night, as fog blocks out the solar over verdant hills.

“It’s forty six ranges in Riyadh and simplest 20 right here, it is 26 ranges lower,” says Al-Enizi at the vacation vacation spot, approximately 850 km (530 miles) southwest of the Saudi capital.

“We’re escaping the warmth. Here, it is cool and the rain and fog are right here almost all of the time,” delivered the semi-retired Saudi, 45, who drove approximately 12 hours from Riyadh.

Around his institution of buddies, households revel in the breeze as their youngsters run round withinside the sparkling air, instead of being cooped up of their air-conditioned homes as is normal some place else withinside the u . s . a ..

Clusters of holidaymakers in raincoats and woolly hats sip Arabic espresso and crowd below umbrellas, at the same time as kites flutter withinside the wind.

“Before we came, we packed all our wintry weather things!” says Nouf, who did now no longer need to provide her surname, at the same time as doing up her daughter’s coat.

Tourist government have constructed a “fog road” for hikers and cyclists traversing a excessive summit that overlooks the mist-shrouded mountains.

Khalaf Al-Juheiri travelled to Al-Namas together along with his spouse and youngsters from Tabuk, in Saudi Arabia’s north, to revel in the “cool climate”.

“We truely omit this climate while the temperature is going over forty ranges in summer time season” in Tabuk, stated the 33-year-vintage civil servant, protecting his head towards the rain.

‘Visit Saudi’

In 2020, a take a look at posted through the Science Advances mag confirmed that the Gulf area had the most up to date and maximum humid weather at the planet.

Because of worldwide warming, a few Gulf towns may want to end up uninhabitable earlier than the stop of this century, professionals say.

Thanks to its altitude and robust winds, Al-Namas escapes the worst of the growing warmth, says Hassan Abdullah, a Jordan-primarily based totally legitimate from the WASM climate era company.

It has end up a prized vacation spot at a time while Saudi government, looking for new earnings streams aside from oil, are closely selling home and worldwide tourism.

The “Visit Saudi” promoting is in complete swing simply 3 years after traveller visas had been first made to be had for overseas site visitors in 2019.

As aircraft fares surge after the pandemic, Saudi households spent eighty billion riyals (approximately 21 billion euros) on home tour final year, a 30 percentage growth from 2019, ministry of tourism figures show.

“Summer is the height traveller season, going from May to October,” says Abdullah Al-Shahri, a hotelier at Al-Namas, wherein wintry weather temperatures on occasion plunge to 0 ranges.

At the pinnacle of a hill that overlooks the inexperienced valley, Mushabab Al-Omari takes withinside the view, sitting subsequent to his spouse.

“I’ve been right here almost 3 months,” says the retiree, “and I’m equipped to live every other 4 or 5 months if the climate remains like this.”