Mike's Saudi (18) Habala the hanging village

This is pretty much as I remember the hanging village Habala, now it is served by a cable railway from somewhere near where this picture has been taken. I believe it is becoming a bit of a tourist attraction.

 A few miles from the base the Mountains started huge valleys literally thousands of feet deep following one after the other like a great field ploughed by giants. I visited them with a couple of English friends, all along they were pretty much the same a shear drop of well over a 1000feet followed by a 45 degree slope of maybe another couple of 1000feet. At one point where the vertical cliff met the slope there was a little village, Habala, with a few terraced fields and a group of small houses.

The population of this place use to climb up to the top along a diagonal narrow ledge intermittently using tree trunks driven into the rock face where the ledge had petered out. At the top they parked their Toyota trucks for the drive into town. I believe the village originated in the time when the Turks invaded the area and these people took refuge in this virtually impenetrable place. It fascinated me; fortunately a little way from the village was a promontory where I went to photograph it.  As I tried to gain a suitable view point I moved slowly forward checking through the camera view finder as I went. For some reason I took the camera from my eye and found I was standing with my toes a few inches from and looking down a drop of thousands of feet. I moved slowly away from the cliff and sat down in a cold sweat. Every time I closed my eyes for days afterwards all I could see was the drop I had so narrowly escaped. How the population of the village could run up and down their path with their possessions balanced on their heads I just do not know.

A BAC friend of mine, a mountaineer decide he would like to climb from the village straight up the cliff face taking two days over it. The villagers thought he was mad and warned him not to go but John had climbed all over the world and knew exactly what he was taking on. He started his climb on the Thursday morning and by evening had reached just over halfway up where he camped on the cliff face in a hanging tent. On the Friday he completed his climb to find all the villagers at the top with the traditional cooked sheep and a pile of rice to celebrate his arrival. He visited the village several times more and was hailed as a hero each time. Later when John returned to the UK he joined a mountain rescue team in Wales and started an outward bound school.