Residents of “Sale Jazan” turn their grandparents’ homes into tourist attractions...

In a new and innovative way aimed at attracting visitors coming to the area and reviving domestic tourism, residents of the Sala Mountains, east of Al-Ardah Governorate in Jizan, resorted to converting their ancestral homes built in the old mountain style with stones and some simple building materials into tourist attractions and rural inns, after restoring them with Preserving its own character to revive the heritage of parents and grandparents, and to be a destination for tourists looking for fun in nature.

According to the figures, the volume of tourism spending in Saudi Arabia last year amounted to about 63.4 billion riyals, despite the pandemic conditions.

The mountains of Salé enjoy the greenness of their flats, the beauty of their old houses built of stones, the height of their mountains, and the coolness of their weather in winter, always accompanied by raindrops, and their moderation in summer. Which made it the focus of attention of tourists from various regions of Saudi Arabia and the governorates of the Jazan region.

The young man, Khaled Al-Jabri, a resident of the Salé Mountains, resorted to restoring a house owned by his family in his village, and turning it into a rural inn, while preserving his identity as nature surrounds him from all sides with his personal diligence in order to be a tourist attraction, and to facilitate those looking for housing. In the mountain, where living in the midst of quiet nature away from the noise of cities is a special pleasure that attracts many visitors from the region.

Not only was the young man “Al-Jabri”, but also six other brothers who live in the Salé Mountains, a forgotten castle that inhabited hundreds of years ago, into a tourist attraction after it was restored and improved to be a destination and a resting place for tourists visiting the mountain.

Ahmed Haid Mufreh Al-Jabri said that the castle is very old and there is no specific date for its age, and it was inhabited hundreds of years ago, noting that the last of the family to inhabit it was their father, who died at the age of 90.

He added: “We, his six children, restored and improved it in order to preserve it from extinction, and our intention – if God grants us and we find support – is to plant coffee in the agricultural terraces adjacent to the castle, and to transform the place into a tourist destination that attracts visitors and tourists from the Kingdom’s regions.”

On the other hand, many demanded the support of this new type of tourist attraction by the Ministry of Tourism and other relevant authorities, and to encourage the owners of old houses, from which the residents came in other places, to restore and transform them into hostels, housing and tourist attractions, with the provision of facilities to them. He indicated that this would revive mountain tourism in the region, especially as it would solve a problem faced by many visitors, which is the search for housing due to the lack of hotels and apartments in many governorates.

The “Salé” mountains are characterized by many archaeological sites that scholars and academics have traced back to pre-Islamic times, such as water wells carved into the rocks, a number of ancient castles, and the so-called “Umbrella Aad”, which is the rock that tops the top of one of the “Salé” mountains. It has become a target for visitors from outside and within the region.

And there are still those in the mountains of Salé who depend on sheep grazing and plowing the land in order to harvest agricultural crops, which some in Salé depend on; To feed the livestock, as well as the vegetables that they depend on for food. The people of the Salé Mountains are distinguished by their dialect and clothing, which does not differ much from the mountainous provinces.