And then there was this crater...

At 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning, most people are sleeping.  But not my friends.This Sunday in August, we are up and already on the road in an effort to beat the heat of the Arabian Desert. It was still dark out and already 38 degrees Celsius, but we had a quest. We were going to see the famed Wahba Crater.

The Wahba crater is located 254 km from Taif in Saudi or about 3.5 to 4 hours from KAUST. This will mean nothing to you unless you’ve been here so let’s just say, it’s a 2 km hole in the middle of nowhere. Really. It is in the middle of nowhere. The road just stops and when you get out of your car, you are standing at the top and it’s a long 250 meters down to the bottom.

But while it’s a bit of a drive. It’s worth seeing – as it’s strange. Some people told us that the crater was caused by a meteorite, but geologists now say the Wahba Crater is volcanic.

It was apparently caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption-an explosion. And if you don’t know what that means, don’t feel bad. I had to look that up as I had no idea what that meant. It means that groundwater came into contact with hot lava or magma and created a mass of sodium phosphate crystals.

It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, because frankly, how often do you come across a giant white lake of sodium phosphate crystals?

I know you are wondering….can you touch it? Yup…if you can find the way down. This was the hard part of our trip. It took us nearly two hours of wandering around the top of crater in the sweltering sun to find the path. In the end we cheated and had to call someone to guide us to the location. But once you are on it, the route down to the bottom is fairly easy and you can do it in 20 minutes.

The great thing about Saudi is that everything is natural and tourism is a big thing yet so if you can find it, you can see it, eat it (don’t do this), bike over it – whatever. But because it’s not commercialized, you won’t find restrooms, snack bars or any other people for miles around, so come prepared with water, sunscreen and a tank full of gas. Cell phone reception was also a little sketchy out there.

Do I recommend it? Yes!! (that's me in the pink shorts).