As Saudi Arabia works towards developing its tourism sector, a crucial part of its Vision to diversify its oil-dependent economy, the Kingdom is vigorously promoting cave tourism as a safe and enjoyable source of adventure after identifying various types of caves as ecotourism destinations as part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 tourism initiative.
The cave, a long tunnel formed by volcanic lava, was formed when the surface of the volcanic lava began to freeze, with the lava below ground remaining as liquid due to the high temperature. More than 5,000 caves around the world attract nearly 250 million tourists each year. These caves contribute $2 billion to the global tourism revenue annually.
Tourists without any desire to go spelunking can still appreciate some of the world’s most amazing cave-scapes. Some of the most famous caves in the world have become tourist hot spots, complete with paths with handrails and lights that illuminate their most interesting formations and fossils. Saudis, for the most part, welcome foreign visitors.
Caving, or spelunking as it is properly called, has so far remained on the fringes of the tourism industry in Saudi Arabia even though hundreds of thousands of Muslims who come to the country on pilgrimage from all over the world every year make it a point to visit the historic Cave Hira on the Mountain of Light in Makkah where the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) received the first revelation in 610 AD.
Geotourism is starting to revive in Saudi Arabia, and travelers of all ages are discovering that caves are a safe and enjoyable source of adventure. Saudi Arabia is a country with rarest wild caves. Its caves have great exploration potential with unsurpassed beauty that provides unending curiosity to a caver.
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Moreover, modern cave explorers crawl into the dark voids beneath the sands for other reasons. Some are attracted by the strange and often breathtaking environment, totally unlike the stark desert above. Others are taken by the sheer challenge of risking limb and life on a thin nylon rope to penetrate an inky-black world, where one small mistake can result in death. All of these explorers relish the possibility of reaching large caverns, where no human being has been before.
Since 1999, Saudi Geological Survey (SGS) has been studying about caves in the Kingdom when it contracted a foreign expert who formed a team of Saudi geologists to conduct a detailed survey of caves across the country. Geologists had discovered the first anhydrite rock in the kingdom when king Abdulaziz invited them to take a walk.
Several experienced cave explorers visited Ein Heet cave with their heavy equipment during the recent years. They reached the edge of a lake which is situated at a distance of 120 meters under the surface. By using scubas, they discovered waterways of this ravine or cave. According to their points of views, this cave has pure water and it is the most pure water in the world. It is located in Aljubail Mountains, about 40 kilometers from Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is a tourist site and one of the caves that can be easily got into. Inside the cave, there is an underground lake in internal circled holes of more than 30 meters deep and 150 meters long. In the past, the water level was high in the lake; and the convoys were supplying water from it. Moreover, the water level has declined recent time.
Chief geologist and head of the cave studies department at the Saudi Geological Survey (SGS), Muhammad Al-Shanti, said “The Kingdom’s Vision 2030 is based on exploiting caves for tourism purposes that benefit the national economy, raising the level of societal awareness of the existence of such wealth in the Kingdom and helping to explore new areas and opportunities that would make desert ecotourism flourish in the Kingdom on a large scale.”
Expert says, most of these subterranean caves unlock hidden treasures of Saudi Arabia’s geotourism wonders. As these national treasures and their surrounding environs have fragile ecosystems, they need to be protected to ensure their survival as well as that of the endemic wildlife preserved by them.
In Saudi Arabia, the earliest explorers of desert caves were the local people, whose daily lives represented a struggle for survival in a very harsh environment. For them, the caves promised a possible respite from heat, cold, and the wind-blown sand. Oftentimes, a brackish pool, hidden at the bottom of a deep pit, was their only source of water.
Tareq Mohammed, a specialist in cave tourism from Madinah, said, “caves in Saudi Arabia are divided into five basic types according to their geological division: Ice caves, which are formed in ice in cold regions; marine caves formed by waves, oceans or rivers flowing into large rocks or mountains, creating large cavities over thousands of years; basaltic caves, known as volcanic caves; limestone caves; and sand caves that form inside sandy mountains.”
