 | DAY 8 |
Al Mahwit Province | |
Thilla
A spectacular canyon view unfurls itself once out of Sana'a 
Our first stop is the city of Thilla, where architecture is stone-based
A close up of the architecture typical of this region.
The girls in Thilla are amazing salespeople.
A girl with a oil bottle transformed into water bottle, common across the countryHabbaba 
The town of Habbaba, proudly called "Venice of Yemen" | |
An eventful day – first we went to the old town to hook up with our new British friend Avrina (the jewelry maker). Abdo – whom I only call "Nabilmoo" now (meaning our Nabil in Greek, and I find he looks more like a Nabil than an Abdo!) – came with us. We went to the following places: Shibam, Kawkaban, Hababa, Thilla, Al Tawilah. They were all spectacular with amazing views overlooking valleys of terraces and faraway canyons. Absolutely amazing the landscape in this country. Besides spectacular views, it was lots of fun with Nabil – he's hilarious and fun to be with. It was great being in his car and traveling in such a relaxed way: he spoke the same dialect of Arabic as we did, as well as some French and a bit of English, and he had more than one song on his stereo! We hiked up in Al Tawilah to the castle, watched the sun set behind the clouds and mist – amazingly inspiring. I must have taken at least 2 rolls of film up there. I wished I could have stayed and written poems. But it was getting dark and we still had to hike back down through the rocks. Besides Nabilmoo was waiting down below, as he wasn't in the mood for a hike. But he told us that we had to hike up there, one because the view was great, and two, because the name of the town had a similar meaning to our family name. We walked back down and Abdo had been stopped by the cops because of the asshole driver that Avrina had. The driver had tried to convince us to go with him, but we refused since Abdo had his own car. But when we found out that he was charging Avrina $50 a day we gave him a hard time, because the standard was to charge $25 per person, not $50. He didn't like that we had brought it up, but we didn't think much of it. But he went and complained to the police because Abdo didn't have a permit to drive tourists around. So we had to drive to the police station, escorted of course. They made us wait outside, while they interrogated Abdo for an hour. Occasionally someone would come outside the police station and ask us questions as well, although most of the time we just had every male from the village staring at us from a distance. It was extremely annoying and useless, as we were friends of Abdo, rather than tourists he had picked up. What a country, what a system these Arabs! It's so backwards. Annoying as hell. The way back was dark, cold and rainy with beautiful lighting across the big sky. But Abdo was understandibly frustrated and wanted to get home as soon as possible. He drove fast and barely spoke. I felt really bad that we had managed to get him into trouble, but he insisted that it wasn't our fault. | |
Kawkaban
Driving up to the town of Kawkaban, one can't differentiate between the terraces, the mountains and the villages on the slopes
Close up of a red stone house in Kawkaban 
A young boy tries to sell us massbahas (worry beads). Some of the houses have horns on the top representing the Islam crescent
Kids always rush to gather in front of your cameraAl Tawilah
Al Tawilah, the Arabic word for tall, is aptly used for this city crowning over the rocks
A blend of sun, mist, mountains, trees, and houses
The houses of Al Tawilah
View from the top onto the roofs of the village below
We climbed to the top of town, and suddenly the mist rolled in; the mountains and terraces were playing hide and seek. 
The mist separates mountains and houses. And makes for an inspiring sunset. |