 | DAY 5 |
Say'un |
Sunrise over the Ramlat as Sab'atayn, the edge of the imposing Ruba' al Khali desert.
Beyond those mountains, the disputed border with Saudi Arabia.
Our hilarious guide, Abdel Karim "bordel de merde."
Playing with shadows
Surprisingly, there is greenery in certain areas
Close up of the sand
A dead hyena hanging from a tree. I still didn't get the meaning of it.
At first I thought it was stuffed...
Roaming free.
After a second flat tire in two hours, Abdel Karim stakes his rifle down, as if anyone in this vast expanse will find us. |
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Picked up at 4:30 am after a sleepless, sweaty, mosquito-infected night. Had a flat tire by 5 am. Towns we've passed so far: Al Wahhad, Kushm El Ain. Ma'rib: I feel like we're in prison - sijin. There is no electricity, we're in the hallway chewing qat. We're not allowed to go into town without a local and there's no cab station close by. This far north into Yemen isn't recommended for tourists, and they do their best to keep them out, for fear of kidnappings. The kidnappings are carried out by local tribes who demand certain things from the government, such as water pipes or sewage. The government doesn't cede into their demands, so their tactic is to threaten them by taking away a Brit (or another similar 'valuable' person) until they get what they want. Rarely have people been killed by their kidnappers here, as it's not them that they're after, but use them as negotiation leverage. In fact some kidnappers have attested to how well they've been treated, given the greatest food and care. But still, tourism is kept at a minimum here. So in this case, this town only has one hotel that's open (which is not in town, but somewhere outside), no cabs, and no way of getting around. The only way for us to leave the hotel is to ask a local to give us a ride, if he's willing. Until that happens, we're stuck in the hotel, so we're making the best of it and chewing some qat. So today has been quite eventful... where to start… Abdel Karim, our guide, is a real character. I want to laugh just thinking about him. He does this, driving tourists through the desert, often. He's learned a few phrases in different languages, and his favorite is "bordel de merde" in French. I don't know how it came to be that the three of us agreed that it would become his nickname... He would listen to same tape over and over again, and mind you, this tape only had one song on it. But he loves Michael Jackson, so would start singing "Beat It" and dancing around like a nut. Sunrise over the Hadramut was spectacular (there is so much qat in flying around my mouth, it's annoying me). Once we went off the road it was great - into the sand dunes. We were driving so fast, it was incredible to be in the car going up a sand dune at high speed, not knowing what was going to be on the other side of the dune once we got to the top. And the car would then fly down the hill, leaving so much swirling sand behind us, as if we had created our own storm. There was a dead hyena (dibir) hanging on a tree. Abdel Karim tried to explain to me what it was all about, but I still didn't understand the meaning of it. In the middle of nowhere, someone had bothered to hang it. I don't know if it was dead or alive when it was hung. Or why it was still hanging there with a stiff yellowish substance coming out like foam from its open mouth. Then we got a second flat tire. Having already used our spare for the first flat, I thought we were stuck in the desert for ever. Abdel Karim then thought it would be a perfect time to have lunch, since there was nothing he could do. We sat down for lunch - a mix of hallawa and "vache qui rit" cheese. It was still cool with a breeze. Abdel Karim stuck his Kalishnakov in the sand in this imposing manner - as if warning the camels roaming by, "Hey! Don't mess with me, I'm armed!" We sat there for a while, and both him and Aida seemed relaxed, whereas in the back of my mind I was trying to calculate how much water we had, and how much hotter it was still going to get. Suddenly Abdel Karim leaps up, started jumping up and down with joy screaming "Allahu Akbar" and waving his gun all over the place. He had seen cars off in the distance and was trying to wave them down. So this group of Toyotas stopped - about four french tourists, with about a dozen Yemenis. They lent us a spare and we drove with them for a while. On and off. | |
The caravan of tourists and guides, per chance, comes to our rescue.
Vast empty spaces
A great place to race indeed!
A little friendly competition keeps us entertained. 
Without a 4WD, a lot of waiting around on hot sand!
The standard outfit for a man crossing the desert: dress, head turban, flip flops, djambia and Kalishnakov.
Even the adults are adamant about having their picture taken.
First we pose
Then we act!
Driving up and down the dunes. I stepped out of the car and stepped into the blistering sand, my feet couldn't last more than a few seconds!
The ships of the desert | |
 Ma'rib |
All the cars stopped and it was time to play. The men all took out
their guns and ammunition, we were going to shoot targets. There was no
saying no when someone handed me the rifle. So I aimed, and as beginner's
luck would have it, was the only one to hit the target; but I nearly fell
back from the force of the shot. We posed for some photos and laughed
a lot. I didn't really talk to the frenchies, although Aida did. One of
them was horribly sick lying down in the back of the car, apparently some
minor heart failure... But I didn't bother with them, and instead talked
to the Yemeni men, whom I found much more interesting. We drove some more.
Then we went to this "petroleum town" and had lunch - fette supposedly.
Abdel Karim and I, we spoke the whole time. Aida was sitting in the back hardly saying a word. When we wanted to leave the town, Abdel Karim lost his key, and we spent an inordinate amount of time looking for it. Then he needed to borrow money for qat, and when he finally bought some he got upset at the bad quality. We met some friend of his in this petroleum town (a daytime town where workers come to extract oil, there is no place to sleep out there) - which we've labeled as majnoun (crazy). He was persistent on marrying me; or kissing me at least. Although we had already encountered many Yemeni men who would say the same, this one was irritatingly persistent. But he was hilarious, with long curly hair in an Afro, his rifle dangling from his shoulder, dancing along to Abdel Karim's renditions of Michael Jackson songs. Then after persisting Abdel Karim that we wanted to leave and weren't interested in the "petroleum town", we went to visit some Bedouin friends of his. It felt surreal. There I was in this tent with the camels roaming outside, the men with their djambias, laying on these pillows. They made us some tea of course. The sole woman there wasn't as covered as much as others; she even breast fed in front of us. Her kids were beautiful. In fact the entire family was beautiful. The dad had henna on his beard, a little touch of red on a greying beard. He had even hennad his goats. Then some others came for a visit and there must have been 15 of us in the tent. It was unspokenly Aida's turn to speak more, as I has been the one talking most of the day so far. She talked about the bedouins she had made friends with in Syria, and as usual, the dad gave us his (always predicatable in their pro-Palestinian outlook) opinion of the Palestinian cause. It was cozy except for my foot falling asleep. Abdel Karim was getting more and more upset about his qat (convinced that it was such bad quality that he wasn't getting enough of a high) and wanted to leave desperately. We then drove down to Ma'rib with Abdel Karim seemingly hallucinating - thinking that someone shot at us, playing chicken with other cars, turning around every time he thought he saw a qat seller. Aida was trying to play the journalist with him, asking him all sorts of questions about its effects, whether or not it's addictive, and the like. But he wasn't listening to her, he was too busy worrying about when and where he was going to buy some. When we arrived at the hotel, Abdel Karim quickly ran off into some building, presumably where his friends could share some qat with him. The hotel was much too expensive for us and we tried to bargain. We had nowhere else to go. We must have spent an hour bargaining over price, and finally checked in for 2000 rials. Not that it mattered in the larger picture how much we were going to pay, but this place was such a dump that it was common sense enough to assume that it shouldn't have been more than 500 or 600 rials. We asked Abdel Karim to get us some qat, screaming over the walls of his friends' house, as we didn't dare go in. We went up to our room, took showers. Abdel Karim came by with our own blue bag of qat, and Aida recorded our voices as we chewed, talked and laughed. We drove to town for some cheapo dinner with some guy who works at the hotel. The electricity in the whole town was out, so everything was dim and dark, yet still open for business - some places running on generators. It's nice to visit towns that are so varied - from open Aden to closed Ma'rib. Apparently it's worse in the North (Al Jawf and Sa'da). I'm finding that I'm not enjoying talking to tourists at all - I prefer the "locals." It's been great being able to communicate, although today I had had enough by the time we had reached the Bedouins. I was exhausted of paying attention to a different Arabic and having to respond. Some memories of today that I still need to expand on: The sand felt cool on my feet in the morning. At noon they burned instantly Abdel Karim dancing to Michael Jackson Playing the same tape over and over Everyone so insistent on marriage. Marry me, marry a Yemeni, etc. My nicknames have been Muhra, Rambo and Gamila. Aida's are Doctora Aide and Sheika I love the bread here Eggs in everything The green marks all have on their teeth from qat. Most have horrible teeth Their looks age so fast The locals seem proud, although some can't understand why we'd want to "step back" to come here and visit In Hadramut the women had long straw hats like witches The bumpiness of the 4wd The smells of the tea |