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Saturday 2007-04-07 - Marib, Yemen
A sad parting
Our room in the “fortified” hotel in Marib is very stuffy: the single window cannot be opened, there is no fan, and the airco is broken. Last night I laid down under just a sheet, but still had trouble falling asleep. Seemingly just after I’ve finally dozed off, I’m woken up by an unexpected sound: knocking — on our door? It’s bad news: Carla’s aged mother has passed away; she’ll have to break off the trip and go home.
Everything is arranged very quickly: a permit for the trip back to Sana’a, in a private taxi; there she can go to our old hotel and fly on to the Netherlands the next day. We’re both dazed for our own different reasons, but still manage to catch some sleep. Our group has to leave at 4:30 in the morning, but Carla gets up at 4:00 as well and informs the group. Now, with pain in my heart, I watch her standing there, at the exit of the little annexe of the hotel where we stayed. She waves us goodbye when we drive away, and we all feel strange and sad to leave her behind like this, all alone, waiting for her taxi which won’t arrive until 8:00. We’ll be far into the desert by then…
Through the sands
It’s still fully dark when we leave the hotel grounds through the guarded gate and drive through Marib but the town is lively with lots of men walking along the streets on their way to the mosque, or their work: the day starts early in Yemen. When we’ve passed the checkpost on the edge of town, our driver Mohamed raises his hands: “Free again!”.
Once outside the town, we can vaguely see the desert in the gray morning light: Small sand dunes with sparse vegetation, an occasional little tree. Then, quite suddenly, all vegetation is gone and all we see in the little light is smallish sand dunes lying in a surprisingly flat plain. In the distance we can vaguely see some mountain ranges. Farther on, we note Marib’s oil field at Safir: the flames can be seen from very far away; this flaring off of the gas will likely stop once the pipeline and the LNG liquefaction plant on the coast will be ready. Next to the oil field we make a short stop for pictures of the rising sun above the desert — the haze through which it rises is dust, not humidity.
A little later we stop at a little shop where we can sit inside (on the floor) to eat the picnick breakfast we brought along: bread, cheese and jam; the shop serves tea with it. In the distance, I see a mountain with its top in what looks like a cloud — it must be a layer of air laden with dust. We also meet our Bedouin guide here: he’s going to accompany us through the desert in his pickup truck. Under his guidance, our drivers let air out of their tires, so they’ll have more grip on the loose sand. Then we leave, and turn off the asphalt road, straight into the desert — at first along a clear trail.
Navigating the desert
It seems as if there is nothing here to orient yourself by, but that is deceptive. First, of course, there’s the sun, and if you know the time of day, you know the approximate compass directions; then there is the mountain range on the left that’s been accompanying us since we left Marib: if you know the shapes of the mountains, you can use them as landmarks; finally, there’s the terrain itself, with varying combinations of sand and sometimes a top layer of pebbles, now reddish brown, then black. Just like we can see the difference between walking over grass and moss, a Bedouin must be able to use similar clues in the terrain here. I imagine it’s like navigating a city where you know the landmarks — except these landmarks are very different in nature.
Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s in the distance: the air heats up fast now the sun is up, and the shimmering hot air creates reflections, hiding a strip just below the horizon. It doesn’t quite look like water, but something — half hidden — is behind it, making it hard to recognize: sometimes mountains, I think; at other times it turns out to be sparse little trees much closer by.
Until now, we were still following a track, but now we’re leaving that, too, and drive over loose sand. One of our three drivers, Hussein, soon gets into trouble: his tires are narrower than those of the other cars, and his four-wheel drive doesn’t work. Our guide proves his worth: he soon notices the trouble and comes back. More air is let out of the tires, and some pushing gets the car afloat again. The passengers are distributed over the other cars, our tour companion Marie Josee getting into the truck with our guide. The sand is almost bare here, there’s only a little shrub here or there, mostly in the lee of a sand dune, occasionally an even rarer little tree. Still we see the same mountain range on our left, now a little closer, then a little farther away; it consists mostly of table mountains, sometimes weirdly shaped by erosion. Every now and then there’s a “crossroads”: a trail in the sand which we cross.
back on the road
At last we get back on the asphalt road and turn right: we’ve cut off quite a distance by going through the sands instead of staying on the new road. Soon after we stop for tea. Several little boys are hanging around, begging us to be photographed.
Saturday 2007-04-07 - Hawra’, Yemen
A tasteless tourist lunch
Even now after we’ve turned off, we see range of mountains on our left. One has patterns that look like eyes: it’s like a big face in the mountain watching us. Farther on, on our right, a sandy hill is capped with a stone formation that has been eroded in the form of a sphinx. A little later we arrive at a T-junction at Hawra’; the road sign tells us that from here it’s 66km (left) to Sey’un, and 239km (right) to Al Mukalla. It’s an important junction, and there’s just one restaurant where of course it’s busy: we’re out of luck, downstairs, where the locals eat, it’s full, so we have to go to the room upstairs (where the tourists eat, and which we’d have preferred to avoid). The food isn’t bad, but seems to be “adapted” to tourists, too: all spices seem to have been left out and especially the vegetable stew tastes quite bland. That’s made up for by a side dish new to us: yogurt, with some spicy tomato sauce on top; I find it delicious and eat quite a lot of that.
Saturday 2007-04-07 - Sey’un, Yemen
French fries for dinner
The road to Sey’un now curves around the mountains on our right, and we’re in a different valley of the Wadi Hadramawt area. It’s the main valley of the Wadi Hadramawt river, a very wide and flat area here, flanked on both sides with table mountains formed by water draining into the valley — a fertile area in the middle of the desert. Along the way, we make a short photo stop to take pictures of old Shibam — from a distance; tomorrow we’ll return to visit the town.
The Al Ahqaf hotel in Sey’un is nice and comfortable, and within walking distance of the city center. After writing a bit, I find out that through some miscommunication I’ll have to go out for dinner alone: the others have either already gone out, or don’t want to have dinner at all. I head into town, and on the way meet some of the others just coming back; they give me some tips for where to find something to eat. French fries sounds good to me, and sure enough at the market place I find a man with a little stall selling french fries (called “chips” here, clearly inherited from the British occupation), and little samosas. A customer next to me translates when I ask what’s in the samosas: onions (pointing at them) — that sounds good to me and I order fries (the last!) and three samosas. A piece of newspaper at the bottom of a little plastic bag to soak up the fat, that’s how my food is packed, some salt put on it before it’s handed over to me. I walk quickly back to the hotel (it’s only 10 minutes or so), buy an alcohol-free beer in the lobby, and head up to my room, where I use the metal tray for the glasses as a make-shift plate. The food is still warm, and the samosas turn out to contain not onions but potatoes, but they’re very tasty.
