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.
