The tour group, led by Brid Beeler, whose Worlds Apart company has been operating tours here for the last five years, spent half their time living in the desert and staying as far as possible from urban centers. “The Saudi authorities were meticulous and discreet in their security,” she said, “but there was no feeling that we were under any kind of threat.”

When the bombs tore the compounds in Riyadh apart on Monday night, the group was out in the desert and only found out later. “Of course we were devastated at the horror of it,” said Glen Fritz. “The people who did this did not have the best interests of the Saudi Arabian people at heart. It’s extremely sad.

“I don’t blame the Kingdom or the people in charge of it. But if there are a very small number of people who do not want to see a friendship develop or grow, then that is really sad.”

“If one can counteract when this happens, we will be fighting back in a positive and in the long term more effective manner,” said Professor of Medical Science Dr. Lennart Moller, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. “We came despite the risks. We didn’t know the war would be over. Leaving the Kingdom in large numbers is not going to send the right message to the Government or the terrorists. By bringing lots of Americans back, it would counteract Al-Qaeda. If you react in the way they want you to react, then they have won. “

Professor Moller, the first Swede to visit Saudi Arabia as a tourist, said that the common factor binding the group was a respect for and interest in the Gulf and the natural history of the area. “We are particularly interested in the local and Asian cultures that have roamed the area for thousands of years,” he said, “Two weeks is simply not enough.”

“We only knew about Saudi Arabia from the media,” he said. “The problem the country has today is that almost no tourists come here. We don’t know what actually is going on or what it is like, we only have the reports from media. It is so complicated to get in here.”

Not all the members of the group were visiting the Kingdom for the first time. Jim and Penny Caldwell, who now live on the Gulf coast of the Mississippi, left five years ago. “We came back because we missed the food, the culture, the hospitality and the opportunities the Kingdom presented for travel,” they said.

Penny Caldwell said that getting out in the desert and camping, albeit as tourists but with the Bedu, just confirmed that the way that Saudi Arabia was going to be properly understood in the West was through personal interaction between ordinary people. “If any sort of understanding is ever to develop, the people who live and like to be here — mainly on compounds — should get out into the community and move about. This is where understanding is going to start. That was exemplified when we sat under the stars out in the desert talking about family hopes and concerns — not arguing over religious matters or politics. That’s where the cultures have to meet before it gets up to a political level.”

It was a fantasy of the desert Kingdom that attracted Glen Fritz of San Antonio, Texas to join the tour. “This country is enchanting with its history and mystery,” he said. “I have read the writers and travelers who were here early on.” He said that by reading their descriptions of wilderness tribes and sands, he lived a fantasy looking through other people’s eyes.

“I was impressed with the solitude — expanse — our little vehicles dwarfed by the mountains and sands. We took as few roads as we could, staying away from cities.”

The group committed to the tour while the conflict in Iraq was in full spate. Their attitude was that staying away from the Kingdom or canceling the tour would be counterproductive to developing any relationship that might help their understanding of what Saudi Arabia was really like.