Stuck

Lenny took me around Riyadh last weekend--Thursday to be exact. Riyadh is huge and like most people that live in huge cities you find an area you like and stick to it. The area most expats enjoy on this compound is close with two malls, plenty of grocery stores, KFC, Hardees, Pizza Hut, Pizza Pizza and Applebees to name a few place they enjoy visiting.
Lenny was showing me around and saw that they were building a new road. So we--or he--decided to go off-roading in the desert. Lenny has a Chevy something--I know it has 4-wheel drive so I felt secure. When we got to the site Lenny told me to act like we were supposed to be their--so I did lloking out the window with my dark sunglasses on and my mouth wide open saying "Look at that..and that..and that." We drove all over the site and not one person stopped us. Then we came to a dirt barrier. But hey we have 4-wheel drive and so...Well we didn't make it. We got stuck! The truck was on top of the dirt barrier with all four wheels moving and none of them touching. We get out of the truck and look things over--hey it's dirt and there are two of us and it's not 100 degrees yet.
So we start to dig and dig. Nothing--the wheels still spin. Out of nowhere two non-Saudis appear-- don't think they spoke English but they could see our situation. Lenny gave them some rope. They hooked it to his bumper and their big Mercedes truck--the rope snapped. They doubled it--snapped again. They braided it--snapped again. By this time more people were around us discussing what to do. They found some heavy metal rods and bent the ends--they broke. We've been doing this for about 30-45 minutes now. It's hot. We're dusty. My shoes are dusty and so are my pants. Then they all leave. Lenny and I start digging again with our hands and feet and the broken steel rod.
In about twenty minutes the two original guys show back up. This time they have a heavy duty steel "rope." They hook it up to the vehicles and give the Mercedes truck some gas and we're off the dirt barrier. We give them each 20SR--something like $5 each--they refuse but we make them take it. I ask permission to take their picture--they let me. I told them they were my heroes for the day.
Lenny continued to show me the city. But nothing beat being stuck in the desert, not being able to speak the language and still having people that were willing to help us. Wow what an adventure! Did I mention I saw camels?