Wadi Hadramaut & Al Mahra

hadramaut

My way continued to Ghail Ba Wazeer, a town lacking any attractions, but in an area nearby, the soil has the strange habit to collapse and create craters of depths of about 30 meters. In one of those craters there's also a small, clear lake, and due to the lack of hotels I've spent the night there.

Then I continued to Wadi Dowan, an arm of Wadi Hadramaut. The scenery there is always the same: A flat, wide Wadi, cultivated and full of palaces in the remarkable hadrami style, bordered by vertical cliffs that end up in an empty stone desert. I also visited Shibam, maybe the most famous Yemeni city after Sanaa and Aden because of it's ancient skyscrapers, but somehow I liked the cities of Wadi Dowan more. Tarim is the islamic center of Wadi Hadramaut and it attracts a lot of young islamic students from south east asia.

In february this year, 2 tourist were shot dead by infiltrators of the problem-governorate of Shabwa, so the local police was worried about me and provided me with free transport services throughout the region. However, while visiting places I could move freely.

Now, the last region I'm visiting before I enter to Oman is Al Mahra in the far east of the country. Most of it's inhabitants either live in the hardly attractive capital Al Ghaidah or on the coast. Unlike in the north, the mountains are very empty, concerning both vegetation and population. There is the same rocky soil like on Socotra, that creates countless caves, and near to Damqut, some mountain dwellers also live in these caves. They survive there through raising goats, collecting francinsence and hunting birds (couldn't find out, what kind of birds, due to the language barrier).

The Mahris speak a languages related to socotri, and also their faces look like the people from the island.

Now I returned again from a day-trip to Hawf to Ghaidah, in order to be sure not to miss the most important football game for Austria since at least 10 years.