From the belay 20 feet below, Waldo Etherington yelled, “Just put in a bolt, mate. You don’t want to break your legs out here!” The day of 18th December 1992 dawned on the city of Lahore with a new exotic taste of Arabian Sweets for its inhabitants. This day, Arabian Delights opened its door and brought to this food-loving city something unique, authentic, and as rich as the Arab culture. Chefs from Syria and Lebanon were hired to replicate these sweets just the same way as they are offered in the Arab world. These mouth-w

Do you think this might be a good place to climb?” she casually inquired as we sipped flat whites in a hipster Notting Hill coffee shop. On September 27, 2019, the long-closed Kingdom of Saudi Arabia formally introduced an easily obtainable tourist visa, as part of wider plans to modernize the country and diversify the oil-dependent economy. The area of interest to us was Wadi Al Disah, a complex area of sandstone canyons and pinnacles in Tabuk province in the North West. A landscape reminiscent of Utah’s iconic Canyonlands, it is about 200 miles south of the long established Jordanian adventure climbing paradise of Wadi Rum. We drove out of Al’Ula across a high plateau into a region of jagged peaks before a long, winding descent into the Disah Valley or Wadi al Disah, in Arabic. In many Western minds, the name Saudi Arabia conjures up preconceived images: ultra-conservative Islam; repression of human rights; and vast expanses of desolate desert, home to globally dominating oil reserves.My only problem with chocodates is the obvious one. The chocolate is a bit poor. It’s a standard issue 30% cacao milk chocolate and it doesn’t really deliver much in the way of a taste experience. Each time I had a Chocodate I found myself thinking “These would be so much better if somebody decided to bring out a posh version with some proper chocolate” and that’s more or less the thrust of this review. Little surprise then that some bright spark decided to cover dates in chocolate. Sweet fruit and sweet chocolate – perfect. The cunning part was when the inventor of Chocodate decided to replace the date stone with a whole almond. Genius. Hell, yes! It looks epic. Do you know if it’s been climbed?” I responded, pop-eyed. I’d just seen the tower of A’atir, which would someday become the ultimate destination on our trip.

Although I have had the privilege to visit other little explored corners of Earth they have always involved arduous, long and difficult expeditions to extremely remote places. To discover an easily accessible region, in such a culturally fascinating place, unknown to the climbing world with multiple towers and countless other unclimbed walls was a once in lifetime treat. Thanks for the encouragement!” I snapped, brushing coarse sand from the holds. “Would you mind shutting up and leaving me to it?”Think about it, you begin with something wrapped in milk chocolate. Bite down through the shell and you encounter a whole date – soft, sweet, gooey fruitiness. Delicious. The coup de grace is the single crisp almond at the heat of each piece. It’s a great counterpoint to all that squidgy gooiness and finishes the whole experience off beautifully.