The past 24 hours

Wasn’t planning on being offline so long, the first 4-5 hours were by choice, the rest was by circumstance.

And boy do I mean circumstance.

The thing about Hajj, I’m told, is that it’s full of last minute plans being made and cancelled.  Somehow, everything seems to work out in the end.

Hajj Day 3 Photos

Muslim pilgrims head to perform the 'Jamarat' ritual, the stoning of Satan, in Mina near the holy city of Mecca on November 16, 2010 on the third day of the hajj, as Muslims worldwide marked the Eid al-Adha festival with animal sacrifices. (MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images)

More Hajj photos

MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images
Muslim pilgrims gather at Mount Arafat to pray during the Hajj, an annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The prophet Mohammed is said to have given his farewell sermon on this day, according to the Islamic calendar 1,378 years ago. (Nov. 15, 2010)

 

Arafat Day (in photos)

It's very crowded here.  Weird melange of human and bus traffic on the street, everyone zig zagging everwhere.

Note the new photos below.

 
A vendor sells bananas from his cart on the roadside in Arafat, near Mecca

Plains of Arafat can feel like a boot camp...

Arafat – at night

So this is it. The Plains of Arafat.

It’s an eerie place at night. Has kind of a military camp kind of feel. Emergency vehicles driving around, armed troops guarding VIP quarters, and the occasional helicopter flying overhead. Safety and health, it seems, are the Saudi authorities’ biggest concerns.

On 'the Look'

Over the past several years, I’ve been to some pretty wild places.

I’ve sailed down the Ganges, meditated at the birthplace of Buddhism, even been to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  But in all these great places, there’s only one place I’ve seen “The Look.”

And so the pilgrimage begins...

It's really quite the scene now.

Thousands of buses crammed with pilgrims are making their way towards Mina as the Hajj begins.  So far, things seem fairly efficient.  There are naturally delays in moving so many people around, but overall, the increase in traffic controllers on the ground seems to be working.