The Hajj Odyssey - Part 2
We dashed out of the Haram and towards the Bin Dawood supermarket, being conservative enough to find things that would fit into our bags, and lavish enough to ensure we were comfortable was tougher than I'd thought. I grabbed a pilgrim starter kit, which had pilgrim friendly soap / deodorant / shampoo. I found the smallest toothpaste and a rugged hand towel I could find and darted back to our room.
I began knolling (quickly and poorly) all my items and planned the order in which they needed to be taken out accessed. One of our room mates, AkuPe (aa-koo-pair)* was not joining us on our adventure, instead he insisted he was staying behind to look after our flat and our belongings. Theft in Saudi was not unheard of, but it was very very rare so I saw this as sufficient and left my laptop, cash etc. in AkuPe's trust.
We went down to the taxi rank and met Mr Yusuf, who began loading our scarce luggage and just confirmed his price with us. Our Arabic was still fresh and other than greetings we knew very little, we had our friend Buddy* who spoke like a true Arab, assist us in conversing with the driver. He didn't know we hadn't mentioned not having residence permits yet and he let this information slip to the driver who was just as oblivious. He immediately yanked our luggage out the car and I could see his pupils dilate in the dull taxi rank light. This news he was not expecting and he made sure we got the message loud and clear.
Knowledge of how dangerous what we were trying to do was now reaffirmed in my mind and Yusuf immediately changed his price from 300 to 1000.
I'd hit another low. Both of us hadn't had a budget that could accommodate paying 20 times more than a regular off season fare. We were already in Ihram (the white towel you see above, that is adorned by male pilgrims), and were all set to go. We bid him farewell and went to find another driver. There was another young man who we had got pricing from before. This pleasant young man was named Aadil, and we ran into him, in his usual spot on the island in the taxi rank. In a muffled voice I told him upfront that we had both no residence permits or permission to go on pilgrimage. I could see him fighting fiercely with his conscience and eventually agreed on 350 each. We hobbled into his confy Toyota Camry at a little past 8PM and waited to find atleast 2 more people to make this trip cost effective for the driver.
My accelerated heart rate and excitement soon was dwarfed by the waiting game. We saw others departing but most pilgrims had their designated drivers. We weren't leaving without finding atlest 2 more people. We noticed people leaving their taxis to jump into other taxis that were nearly full. This enraged the drivers as they were losing money. We often had other taxi drivers requesting that we ditch Aadil and join them. Aadil studied for a while in New Zealand and his English was pretty good. He also was really friendly and we were going with him or not going at all. by 11PM he told us that if 2 more people don't show up he was going to find us someone else to go with, but by this point we told him we were only going with him. He even at this point said the remaining 2 people could pay 200 each, and we could be on our way.
4 hours had past and my eyes opened at midnight. The longer we took the less of a chance we had crossing the border in the shade of darkness. My legs were already starting to cramp and I was growing a little restless. We saw 2 pilgrims being escorted hurriedly by another driver, who didn't look like the friendliest of folk. I paid little attention to them as they looked like they had already found their captain. After a few minutes a saw them again, flushed with anger and walking in the opposite direction, I knew they were unhappy with their driver and I hopped out the taxi, flip flops and all flagging them down. When the 2 of them heard that we needed 2 people and they could get a discounted rate they were thrilled and I took them straight to the taxi before they could be picked up by another prying driver. Mo* spotted this and was already on the phone to Aadil telling him we'd found our missing puzzle pieces.
The feeling of the car moving in the direction of Makkah was like a cold shot of zam zam after a scorching day of fasting. Aadils voice bellowing the talbiyah (call of the pilgrim) "Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik..." ("Here I am at Thy service O Lord, here I am....") and the flurry of text messages I'd sent to my family were the last memories I'd have of leaving for my first pilgrimage.
Nearly 5 hours after jumpin into his car, we were at the beginning of the long 6 hour path to Makkah.
Aadil navigated through the back roads with the precision of a Garmin. He knew which checkpoints he could go through to save time and which ones to completely avoid. We drove sometimes without headlights to see oncoming police cars. Surgical execution and precision. As we neared Makkah he explained the complexity of the final border crossing, called Jumoom. A name that sounds as terrifying as the consequences it came with. He said he could avoid all security bar this one. We would have to jump off the vehicle and get around it on foot. All our information up to this point noted having to walk around a mountain, through the desert. Aadil however was convinced that this was not necessary. H assured us that we'd just have to, cross the high way, walk on the oncoming lane into Makkah, cross the highway after the border and he would meet us on the other side, simple.
All that stood between us and Makkah was a couple hundred policeman, a border control that checked every pilgrim, and the thought of deportation.
He halted his car as far as he could so that border control wouldn't notice us stopping and getting off.
"Go! Go! Go!" he yelled, as we leapt out of the car, across the high way and up the oncoming lane into Makkah. As we got closer, the mortifying colours we needed to see, subdued us. The flashing lights of a police car. The lights were coming in our direction. Makkah's finest were headed for us.
I began knolling (quickly and poorly) all my items and planned the order in which they needed to be taken out accessed. One of our room mates, AkuPe (aa-koo-pair)* was not joining us on our adventure, instead he insisted he was staying behind to look after our flat and our belongings. Theft in Saudi was not unheard of, but it was very very rare so I saw this as sufficient and left my laptop, cash etc. in AkuPe's trust.
We went down to the taxi rank and met Mr Yusuf, who began loading our scarce luggage and just confirmed his price with us. Our Arabic was still fresh and other than greetings we knew very little, we had our friend Buddy* who spoke like a true Arab, assist us in conversing with the driver. He didn't know we hadn't mentioned not having residence permits yet and he let this information slip to the driver who was just as oblivious. He immediately yanked our luggage out the car and I could see his pupils dilate in the dull taxi rank light. This news he was not expecting and he made sure we got the message loud and clear.
Knowledge of how dangerous what we were trying to do was now reaffirmed in my mind and Yusuf immediately changed his price from 300 to 1000.
I'd hit another low. Both of us hadn't had a budget that could accommodate paying 20 times more than a regular off season fare. We were already in Ihram (the white towel you see above, that is adorned by male pilgrims), and were all set to go. We bid him farewell and went to find another driver. There was another young man who we had got pricing from before. This pleasant young man was named Aadil, and we ran into him, in his usual spot on the island in the taxi rank. In a muffled voice I told him upfront that we had both no residence permits or permission to go on pilgrimage. I could see him fighting fiercely with his conscience and eventually agreed on 350 each. We hobbled into his confy Toyota Camry at a little past 8PM and waited to find atleast 2 more people to make this trip cost effective for the driver.
My accelerated heart rate and excitement soon was dwarfed by the waiting game. We saw others departing but most pilgrims had their designated drivers. We weren't leaving without finding atlest 2 more people. We noticed people leaving their taxis to jump into other taxis that were nearly full. This enraged the drivers as they were losing money. We often had other taxi drivers requesting that we ditch Aadil and join them. Aadil studied for a while in New Zealand and his English was pretty good. He also was really friendly and we were going with him or not going at all. by 11PM he told us that if 2 more people don't show up he was going to find us someone else to go with, but by this point we told him we were only going with him. He even at this point said the remaining 2 people could pay 200 each, and we could be on our way.
4 hours had past and my eyes opened at midnight. The longer we took the less of a chance we had crossing the border in the shade of darkness. My legs were already starting to cramp and I was growing a little restless. We saw 2 pilgrims being escorted hurriedly by another driver, who didn't look like the friendliest of folk. I paid little attention to them as they looked like they had already found their captain. After a few minutes a saw them again, flushed with anger and walking in the opposite direction, I knew they were unhappy with their driver and I hopped out the taxi, flip flops and all flagging them down. When the 2 of them heard that we needed 2 people and they could get a discounted rate they were thrilled and I took them straight to the taxi before they could be picked up by another prying driver. Mo* spotted this and was already on the phone to Aadil telling him we'd found our missing puzzle pieces.
The feeling of the car moving in the direction of Makkah was like a cold shot of zam zam after a scorching day of fasting. Aadils voice bellowing the talbiyah (call of the pilgrim) "Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik..." ("Here I am at Thy service O Lord, here I am....") and the flurry of text messages I'd sent to my family were the last memories I'd have of leaving for my first pilgrimage.
Nearly 5 hours after jumpin into his car, we were at the beginning of the long 6 hour path to Makkah.
Aadil navigated through the back roads with the precision of a Garmin. He knew which checkpoints he could go through to save time and which ones to completely avoid. We drove sometimes without headlights to see oncoming police cars. Surgical execution and precision. As we neared Makkah he explained the complexity of the final border crossing, called Jumoom. A name that sounds as terrifying as the consequences it came with. He said he could avoid all security bar this one. We would have to jump off the vehicle and get around it on foot. All our information up to this point noted having to walk around a mountain, through the desert. Aadil however was convinced that this was not necessary. H assured us that we'd just have to, cross the high way, walk on the oncoming lane into Makkah, cross the highway after the border and he would meet us on the other side, simple.
All that stood between us and Makkah was a couple hundred policeman, a border control that checked every pilgrim, and the thought of deportation.
He halted his car as far as he could so that border control wouldn't notice us stopping and getting off.
"Go! Go! Go!" he yelled, as we leapt out of the car, across the high way and up the oncoming lane into Makkah. As we got closer, the mortifying colours we needed to see, subdued us. The flashing lights of a police car. The lights were coming in our direction. Makkah's finest were headed for us.
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