Sanaa and the mountains between Manakha and Shahara

My trip to the mountains started with a shock: My camera was stolen somewhere on the way to Manakha, including ALL pictures from my tour since egypt. But as I already took pictures of the area where i planned to trek I didn't return back to Sanaa imediately and continued.

The special thing about the landscape in Yemen is that the buildings on the cliffs and slopes in the mountains complement perfectly with their surroundings and often, from further away it's hard to define where the rock ends and the fundament of the building starts. One can find such fort villages just everywhere, which supports my way of trekking without a planned itinery.

After 3 days I met the next "harami" (criminal): A young man of my age made use of his djambia (the traditional dagger most yemenis wear on their belt) to rob my money, but as i knew his house (i spent the previous night there) i just asked some locals for help to demand my money back from his father, successfully. Later they told me that he will be arrested for 1 year. Seems like a court investigation is not nessecary in Yemen for such a long term. So much about the bad incidents.

Just one day later, in a small village called beit anaheim, i spontaneously decided to start teaching english at the school volunteerly after i found out that they don't have an english teacher there, but my career lasted only 3 days, then police moved into the village to resolve a local land dispute nearby and they wouldn't have accepted me as a teacher there as i have no working visa. Nonetheless it was an interesting experience.The class starts in the morning with a strange, half an hour lasting ceremony, similary to what i've seen in a school in sinai: it's a mix of gymnastics and a military parade without weapons and instruments. At the end the students show the teacher,who leads the ceremony, their clean hands, and if they're dirty they'll be cleaned by hitting them with a stick. Beating up the students with a stick is not considered here as a crime, but as a necessity to push their ambition. Every single person I asked later about this, shared the same mind. Though I totally disagree with this opinion, I have to admit that this circumstances made it much easier for me to teach there, as i have no experience to work with children and lack of any authoritarian character.

So I continued still 2 days to trek north to wadi surdud, a remarkably big and clear stream for yemenite means, and from there up to the main road connecting al mahweet with sanaa, where i took a lift back to sanaa. I bought an oud (arabic guitar) for some 160 euros, attended an ethiopian nightclub to renew my amharic and vibrate my shoulders, and returned near to al makhweet to continue my trek where it ended, after it turned out that the police in beit anaheim would stay longer.

In the mean time the rainy season had started with one month delay, and in the afternoons the wadis were filled with brown,muddy rivers, but fortunately not strong enough to hinder from crossing on foot or by car. Near Hajja I passed by many fresh cadavers of donkeys and goats which were surprised by the floods. In Sanaa the streams on the streets are raising very fast because there aren't any spillways.

In Yemen, even the most isolated village has road access, and many times i didn't mind to jump on one of the occasionally passing by pick-ups, as the speed on the difficult roads is very slow, and it's nice to observe the surroundings with an open air view.

Most people I met on the way called themselve bedu, though they were neither nomadic nor had a significant darker skin than the city people, like in egypt, but at least I've found their legendary hospitality. Some people, the "akhdam", have also some obvious african traces in their faces. In the Tihama, the coastal strip along the red sea there are more of them to find, living in african style huts, but here they assimilated entirely.

In all areas,whenever the dawn was near, the people warned me not to sleep outside as there might be some leopards. I was not sure if i should believe them, but if they really exist, for sure they are very afraid of human beings, as many yemenites carry kalashnikows in addition to their djambia, and wouldn't hesitate to shot them. One guy showed me a tail of a cat of prey hanging from the ceiling of his living room,(looked like from a leopard)which he claimed to have hunted down.

In an area south of shahara, some men asked me if i'd have a metal detector to help them to find old coins from the hameri kingdom (bilquis, the legendary queen of sheba was one of it's reigns), but i had to decline. They said their area is full of them and the rain would erode the soil and might release some tresures. But I tought them that the famous coin of Maria Theresia, which is very popular in Yemen and sometimes still used as a currency, is not from France as most yemenites believe but from my country.

Shahara should become the final destination of my tour, walking further north would lead me to the civil war of Sadaa. Shahara is famous for it's old bridge connecting two vertical cliffs, a must for the photo album of the ordinary tourist. On the pictures I've seen on the internet it looks very impressive but actually it's hardly longer than 10 metres. The village itself is not much worth seen, but the scenery of the mountain top where it's built on all the more. There are two tourist hotels, which frightened me with their high fee of about 12 euros per night which i could drop to 8 euros after routinely bargaining, but the excellent dinner and the breakfast included in the fee alone were worth at least 8 euros, not to mention my first hot shower since I left austria.