Last weekend, Tami, Ryan, and I went on a little trip. Neither Tami nor myself had been outside of Sana’a for quite a while. Ryan had never been anywhere… We started early, the driver was told to meet us at 7:00. This being Yemen, he didn’t actually show up until 8:00. We then hit the road and didn’t really have any trouble after that.
Mahweet was our first stop. I had seen some pictures of the place and it looked quite nice. Mahweet is no little village, it is quite large, in Yemen you might even call it a small city. It took about three hours to get there. Ryan and I were beat, getting up that early is not part of our usual schedule. Tami exercised her remarkable ability to sleep in just about any situation. She’s small enough that she was able to curl up in the back seat and use me as a pillow. I was more than a little jealous…
Anyway, we got there and the driver took us to the best scenic area in the town. It was pretty impressive, we could see several small villages up on outcrops of rock overlooking an impressive vista. Unfortunately, there was a fair amount of dust in the air so the far views were obscured. The guide motioned us to come along with him along the side of a cliff. We started to walk along it and quickly realized that we probably shouldn’t do that. He wanted us to keep going, but what little footpath there was disappeared after 10 feet or so. It was a long ways down, so we decided to be smart and got down. Ryan scrambled up a little higher and snapped the picture I posted earlier.
We then went to the old part of the town and took a look at the architecture. There were a bunch of kids and some old buildings. I snapped some pictures and then we left. Shibam was our next stop. I had been there before and found it to be particularly dreary. We went to a restaurant/ hotel for lunch. Apparently there is a woman that owns it and runs it. She is quite the business woman, she owns several buildings and businesses. The food was really good, the star had to be the salta. We managed to request it without the fenugreek, and that made all the difference. Man, was it good. This was real salta with lots of lamb and veggies. Usually, whenever I get it in Sana’a, it’s just lamb in some sauce with a huge dollop of fenugreek on it.
We then drove up to Kawkabahn. I had been there before on a much clearer day, so I didn’t take many pictures of the impressive view. I tried to take more pictures of the town itself. It’s an old place and looks quite run down. Still, it has a lot of character, and there are some nice, if pushy, souvenir sellers there. It was fun to talk to some of them even though they were lying through their teeth. They claimed to have all sorts of really old “artifacts” for sale, most of which I had seen in Sana’a as well.
Anyway, we climbed back into the car, Tami fell asleep again, and we went back home. I was totally wiped out, not only that day, but the next as well. None of us made it to class the next day. It was nice to get out of town for a little while, and the lunch was great. I hope to have some pictures up soon.