Maroond in the desert after finding Diomands

    So far my adventures have been taking place with a small number of people Doug the “bata” Pro, Joel a pilot who intends on living in Costa Rica for the rest of his life, Todd the oil buff, jay a pilot who owns a restaurant in Canada with a golf pro, and Lonnie. Lonnie is always with me, we share a rather peculiar sense of humor and our personality’s (My “what the hell lets just see what happens sense of adventure” and his “older brother don’t get yourself killed and laugh after you fall down”) match to the point where were perfect for random adventures together. Lonnie is a middle age man with a family back in Florida and of all the things I know about Lonnie what I realize the most is how much he loves his wife and kids and how each day away from them pains him a little bit more.

  Today was Lonnie’s choice of adventure. A few days after I had arrived into the country Doug had shown me his desert diamonds. Stones found in the sand that can be taken to a jeweler and cut into stones resembling diamonds. Now these stones are valuable there worth about $50 a caret are harder that zirconium and only slightly softer than diamonds. AND apparently all you have to do is pick them up out of the sand. Not really my speed but I was down to go anyways.

 We arrived in the desert about two hours north of the city to find vast open space. After a short lesson on what to look for, we were off to find diamonds. Joel and I to the left and Lonnie and jay to the right, as were wondering around staring at the ground Joel and I think we have hit pay dirt. A huge area covered with the stones that Lonnie described just laying in the dirt their for us to pick up.  After Joel and I fill our bags full of rocks we walk over to Lonnie thinking we have found our fortune only to find out that of the 25 pounds of stones we thought were diamonds Lonnie advised us that only two were and that 3 other stones were actually petrified camel dung. The funniest part is thinking of some nomad finding our pile of regular rocks and camel dung that we just dumped out of the bags into a pile, and wondering how the rocks found there way into a pile as opposed to strewn out in the desert.

 After leaving the area with the diamonds we headed back towards the hotel, driving through Thamama again we set out to ride a camel, but couldn’t find a salesman willing to let us so we rented Dune buggies instead. Now when you’re in a foreign country that happened to consist primarily of sand and a guy name Joel says “ this reminds me of that show I shouldn’t be alive” don’t rent dune buggies just go back to the hotel and watch a movie. Yea well we rented them anyways. Mistake 1. Upon inspecting these buggies I point out there just simple VW’s with the body ripped off and a make shift roll cage snottily welded to the frame. We bartered for two of them for one hour, the guy asked for my phone number and I assumed it was like renting a car; they want your phone number. Well that was mistake 2. He wanted my number in case anything were to happen to his buggies, well the four of us all left our phones in the truck for fear they might get lost, and only being gone an hour we wouldn’t need water or jackets. Mistake 3. With the deal done and our testosterone flowing were tore off into the desert. To honest as big a pile of crap this things were they were fun. The sand was soft and doing things like donuts and jumping sand dunes was easily done. But climbing hills well that was mistake number 4. As we approached a rather un steep hill our buggy bogged down to the frame and threw so much sand onto Lonnie and I that when I washed my hear that night I clogged the drain. (Weather that was due to the bad plumbing that frequently backs grey water up into the tub or the sand is unknown) Joel and jay found us and tried to push us out of the sand pit we had created there buggy and got buried and we had to be pulled out by a random Saudi that was out there doing the same thing we were, in his bran new hummer, the great thing about being in a country were no one speaks English is that the thought you would normally keep to yourself and tell your buddies later can be said openly. So while the army of young Saudis that helped us out Joel turns and says to jay. “You think there making fun of the four dumb tourists?” as jay is laughing and about to respond one of the younger ones says “ yup they pretty much are and they think Lonnie looks like Nicolas Cage.” We were all laughing so hard that the young one that knew English had to explain to the rest of them why we were laughing. Then everyone was laughing and pointing at Lonnie asking to take pictures with the actor. Soon we were off and reeking havoc again and 20 min into our sixty Lonnie an I find Joel and jay stopped, thinking they were stuck again, we started circling them spraying them with sand until they were yelling that there buggy had died. Of course this didn’t yield help it yielded more laughter and taunting. Finally Lonnie and I get out to help Joel and jay and Joel jumps into our buggy and starts doing doughnuts. Mistake 5. Less than five minutes into Joel’s ride our buggy dies. Now we cant get either of them started. First its all laughter and jokes then when the four of use simultaneously realize we got to walk back to the rental guy the weight of our “who knows how long” walk out of the desert in soft sand was going to more than suck. But in true “dumb young group of guys” fashion we all started laughing, blaming, and taunting each other  for the potentially paroles position we were in.

    Well we started walking, we didn’t even make it 100 yards from our dead buggies when two young Saudis blaring Britney spears out of their SUV stopped and starting talking to us in Arabic. What I’m sure he said was “ What the hell are you four dumb Asses doing in the middle of the desert with two piece of junk buggies.” Thankfully after we all looked at him with what must have resembled that dog twisting his head, he said “ you American? I love American!! I help now,” We told him we were from Canada. He laughed and said, “ Ok Ok close enough” now we had a choice to make. Walk a million miles through the desert with no water in the direction we thought we needed to go or let this guy who seemed nice give us a ride back to the highway. Well the four of us conferred that we could probably take these guys if necessary, or that the sand was soft enough we could just bail out of the car and be fine. So we all climbed in his SUV. This guy insisted on continuing to talk to us in Arabic even with all the confused looks and we continued to smile and try to communicate. About 20 min later we made it back to the highway instead of getting on the nice smooth highway he instead he shows us the high speed off road capability’s off his SUV. Which normally I would see as fun but the “opps I did it again” (painful Britney spears song) blaring in the background made the ride brutal. Now in our broken communication we figure out that he’s asking us what direction to head to get back to our vehicle. 20 min later in the direction we thought it was we noticed our Saud friend was beginning to loose his penitence’s. We decided that we were at least to the highway and we should exit the vehicle and release our rescuing friend. Well he decided to not let us, picking up speed and calling people on his phone. We start discussing our “bail out of a moving car” option. As Joel starts to open the door we begin to slow. And cars start showing up. Now about 20 Saudis a get out of three or four vehicles, kissing each other cheek in the traditional Saudi greeting, and the last guy to show up was this guys brother, he gets out of his car and laughing and says “ What the hell are you guys doing this far out” thankfully he went to school in the states and spoke perfect English. Come to find out that the angry phone call that prompted us to consider bailing out of the moving car was to his brother and was about him being pissed off at the buggy rental guy for renting us such huge pieces of junk.  He herded us back into his SUV and took us straight back to our vehicle. All, while warning us about the dangers of getting stuck in the desert, we all felt like little kids in the back seat of the car getting yelled at by mom and dad.