Huber Tracks 1879
As it is our method, we dig in the history of Arabian Peninsula searching for appealing story and itinerary then we try our best to find a passionate guide who knows the area real well and had countless number of exploration trips to the same region since we are so careful with being on the right track.
Having said that we met with Mr. Mohammed Al Ma’arik, a Saudi gentleman in his 50’s from Buraidah. He has been tracing the tracks of Charles Auguste Huber, a French orientalist and explorer who made two trips to Arabian Peninsula crossing The Big Nufud in one of the occasions in May! Huber’s first trip was in 1879 where he resides in Ha’il for six months then continued his wandering in the desert of Ha’il and Tabuk making friends on his way and wrote a diary full of useful information that consists of even barometric readings of the weather at that time!
Our explorer and guide of this itinerary Mr. Al Ma’arik is actually fond of Huber’s personality as well as methodology of noting each and everything he experienced and noticed while travelling in the northern vast desert of Saudi Arabia!
Photo Credit: (Florent Egal)
Mr. Al Ma’arik started his tracing of Huber tracks in 2005! sometimes going all alone to have enough time to explore certain sites with no one around to divide his attention that sometimes puts him into difficult situations such as running out of fuel or water or getting stuck in the middle of nowhere!
One of the incident he encountered was a loose water tap causing leakage of water from his built-in car water tank! That was followed by a nasty stuck of his car with a high crescent shape sand dune behind him and a mountain in front of him! which resulted in a lot of sand removing attempts till he no longer can move a muscle and had to spend the night in such wilderness all alone!
Photo Credit: (Florent Egal)
The Horizons Tours coordinated a trip in Mar 2018 where Mr. Al Ma’arik had lead us with other friends to walk on the tracks of Huber & Euting. It was one of the best trips we’ve taken, it’s actually a dream trip as per some participants and a lifetime experience which we all had enjoyed in that area following the follower of Huber & Euting and camping bonfire weekend exactly where the two orientalists had camped!
That was indeed a very remarkable experience especially when we followed Mr. Al ma’arik to cut 60 KM between mountains in order to reach Jabal Mahajjah! That was a very entertaining to all of the trip participants who really had expressed their amazement.